Aesthetic Production Research Articles

Aesthetic Embeddedness: Towards an Aesthetic Understanding of Cultural and Artistic Entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT Aesthetics is quintessential for entrepreneurial practice and theory. Specifically, we argue that aesthetics provides a more sophisticated understanding of the embeddedness of cultural and artistic entrepreneurship (CAE). This paper is based on an aesthetic ethnography of entrepreneurial organizations in the music sector in Brazil. Our findings generate a conceptualization of aesthetic embeddedness, explaining how CAE is embedded in culture through three practices (crossing, syncretic and valuing). Crossing practices are aesthetic contagions that generate exchange. Syncretic practices are harmonizations between different elements that create coexistences during aesthetic product creation. Valuing practices are aesthetic negotiations that occur between entrepreneurs and stakeholders. As an outcome of the three practices, we discuss how aesthetic knowledge deriving from aesthetic embeddedness can be mobilized as aesthetic capital, value and innovation in entrepreneurial practice.

Aesthetics Model Applied for Older Adults: Daily Life Assistive Device Study

Aims Assistive devices play a vital role in improving the quality of life for older adults. However, the effectiveness and utilization of these devices depend on their functionality, expressiveness, and aesthetics. In this study, we aim to enhance the aesthetics of assistive devices to increase their utilization rates and reduce the psychological distress experienced by older adults. Methods A quantitative and qualitative survey was conducted (a) to create a basic prototype for the conceptual framework of this study to discuss the relationship between the functional, expressive, and aesthetic elements of the auxiliary equipment and (b) to extract and construct aesthetic elements and modes of the auxiliary equipment. Results Asthetics was found to be a major reason for the use or abandonment of assistive devices. This study focuses on “product aesthetics” and considers materials and aesthetics simultaneously. Conclusions The results indicate the design of assistive devices for older adults should incorporate craft aesthetics characteristics.

Using Design Briefs to Empirically Replicate and Extend the ‘Designence’ Model of Strategic Design Value

Despite increasing attention from academics and practitioners Design Management lacks a widely-agreed upon empirical measure. This paper proposes a new conceptualization of Design Management based on the view of design as a “managed process” within organizations (Bruce and Bessant, 2002, p. 38). We employ an expert rating procedure of product design briefs and Exploratory Factor Analysis to derive eleven factors of information elements contained within these document that constitute Design Management: F1 Insights into Customers; F2 Business Model; F3 Product Aesthetics; F4 Authenticity; F5 Symbolic/ Experiential Value; F6 Functional Value; F7 Promotions/ Distribution; F8 Sustainability; F9 Production/ Development; F10 Project Management; F11 Risk/ Safety. Further, we clarify the strategic role of Design Management by relating these factors to measures of firm performance at the product project- and competitive advantage-levels. Our findings are rationalized using the Balanced Score Card for Design Management approach, made up of: (1) Customer Perspective; (2) Process perspective; (3) Learning and Innovation perspective; and (4) Financial perspective. Our results confirm the overwhelmingly positive relationship between Design Management and firm performance and highlights the differential effects of individual factors across the two measures.

Introduction: Counter-stories from the Arctic Contact Zone

This special issue of Interventions presents essays from twelve scholars from the field of Arctic Humanities that collect, contextualize, and theorize micro-histories of encounters between Arctic Indigenous people or Arctic animals and European, Russian, and North American agents of empire in the long nineteenth century. In bringing out from Arctic archives Indigenous agencies, voices and aesthetic productions, animal presences and fates, the essays collected here contribute to ongoing academic efforts to decolonize knowledge on the region. This, in our case, means to (1) document the impact Euro-American and Russian imperialism had on human and animal life in the Arctic region; (2) foreground the knowledge, creative expressions, experience, resilience, and resistance of Indigenous individuals, peoples, and communities; and (3) expose the illusions of modern progress narratives (scientific, material, moral) that accompanied colonial ventures in the Arctic region. The Introduction to this special issue on “Counter-stories from the Arctic Contact Zone” presents a broad overview of the history of colonization in the areas of the Arctic (today’s Canada, Inuit Nunangat, Alaska, Kalaallit Nunaat [Greenland], Svalbard and Sápmi) that the essays address. It then sets the methodological framework for the essays through a discussion of postcolonial theory concerned with the politics of knowledge production and the possibilities and challenges of contrapuntal re-readings of the cultural archive. Central here is a discussion of how Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of the contact zone aids the discovery and documentation of counter-narratives that challenge and disrupt the colonialist meta-narratives that then supported empire and today continue to impact how dominant, capitalist cultures relate to, exploit, and extract from the Arctic region and its peoples.

Sentence Completion Test – Research and Inspirational Tool for Industrial Designer

The traditional documentation techniques used by designers fail to capture the needs, expectations and interests of the subconscious of the targeted market segment. Sentence completion test is a technique that can identify these elements both at conscious level and subconscious level. The purpose of this research was to verify on a practical case the usefulness of the technique as a research and inspirational tool for designers and also to propose a test structure when applying the technique in the field of product aesthetics.

Documentary principles in fiction in the light of the value-ontological approach

The purpose of the publication is to establish the reasons for the growth of the documentary principle in fiction for over the last one and a half centuries in connection with the transformation of the semantic and value powers that the author of the work possesses. The value aspect of the documentary principle in literature is about the role the fact plays as a link with being, when the writer’s ability and his right to authoritatively act as a subject coming into contact with the cumulative experience of mankind is called into question. In the presence of the documentary principle, the result of a creative act is not a narrowly understood aesthetic product, a phenomenon of an exclusively fictitious nature realized in “autonomous being”, taken outside the “reality of births and deaths” of the author and the reader. Reliance on the fact opens up the possibility for a creative act to be realized as an event, rooted in the space of its responsibility to true being. However, the creative activity of the artist as the founder and organizer of a meaning-generating event still remains an indispensable condition for a work of art. The dialectical unity of the truth of a fact (document) and the individual creative initiative of the author is preserved in literature of a predominantly documentary nature. The author confirms the authenticity of all stamps on the document, personally and artistically ratifying it and overcoming its subjective ontological fluctuation. The formative initiative of the author also remains of paramount importance due to the fact that a direct transfer of life to paper is impossible (either because of its inexpressiveness, or, more often, due to the intolerable traumatic experience that is ousted from the bright field of the individual’s consciousness). The author provides an opportunity for the other (the reader) to have access to the “bare life”, of which he was a witness and a participant, creatively building a subject-shaped structure that ensures this accessibility. The work of V. T. Shalamov serves as a support for the ideas presented in the article.

Consumer analysis and the role of information in sustainable choices: A natural experiment

“I shop therefore I am” (R. Campbell), or putting it differently, we are what we buy, and the way we make our purchases influences the future choices of economic decision-makers. Therefore, our decisions are crucial in defining the future sustainability of the whole system. Despite the plethora of initiatives introduced to enhance consumers' consciousness, the gap between ideal and real consumption attitude still exists and is a non-negligible problem, since subjects' sustainability intention is not always followed by sustainable consumption. Therefore, by employing a natural field experiment, the present work explores consumers' real behavior toward sustainable switching. Specifically, this study examines how the impact of targeted communication leads to a market basket sustainable shift. Indeed, we observe how the consumer's basket composition varies from control (where no targeted communication is included) to treatment (where specific and detailed communication is introduced through ad-hoc on-site banner signals). Results show the positive impact of the communication; after the introduction of the communication, the share of sustainable products is higher compared with the non-sustainable set of products. As a further extension, we consider the role played by product aesthetics: even if the effect is marked for sustainable products preserving the characteristics of the conventional substitute, such effect vanishes when a subset of radically different products is considered.

African Literatures as World Literature ed. by Alexander Fyfe and Madhu Krishnan

Reviewed by: African Literatures as World Literature ed. by Alexander Fyfe and Madhu Krishnan Tanure Ojaide African Literatures as World Literature ED. ALEXANDER FYFE & MADHU KRISHNAN New York. Bloomsbury Academic. 2022. 268 pages. AFRICAN LITERATURES as World Literature is in the Literatures as World Literature series, described as "a novel approach to world literature by analyzing specific constellations—according to language, nation, form, or theme." However, "African literatures" are not united by language, nationality, form, or theme! The first book in the series dealing with the literatures of a continent unified by culture, one would expect the series editor to add "culture" to the defining "constellations" of world literature. In the introductory chapter, Alexander Fyfe and Madhu Krishnan, the editors, lay the theoretical groundwork and issues that undergird the rest of the book. They assert that "world literature, specifically, bifurcates around two interrelated modes: the affirmative and the critical." They go on to define world literature as a "practice … intricately bound not only to the circuits of production, circulation and consecration through which 'a literature' as such is produced but also through its inextricable ties with the external world." The editors emphasize works written in African languages, "cross-border and global dialogue," and transnational literary collaborations. Bhakti Shringarpure's "'African Borders Are Unnatural': Nairobi and the Rise of a World Literature" uses Nairobi as a case study of African literature engaging with migration, mobility, nomadism, exile, and itinerancy. The author discusses how Binyavanga Wainaina and Joy Mboya deploy cosmopolitan experiences of Nairobi in their respective novels. These writers and the literary magazines such as Jalada and Lolwe move the literary conversation beyond the local and national to "a more cosmopolitan, border-defying and transnational agenda." Billy Kahora rejects Shringarpure's argument about Nairobi, the headquarters of "humanitarian consciousness," as inspiring literary creativity and observes that "more often than not, the African novel is now written in the West." Sarah Arens's chapter discusses the francophone Alain Mabanckou's and Koli Jean Bofane's novels set in the two Congo nations, respectively, that "present different visions of African intellectual and literary engagements with the world," which make African literature in French a type of world literature. Another chapter discusses "Kaisa," a narrative Swahili poem set in Angoche in northern Mozambique as world literature. Similarly, early Sesotho, isiXhosa, and isiZulu writings are discussed. Clarissa Vierke and Chapane Mutiua seem to strain to describe these works in indigenous South African languages as "world literature." The ninth chapter, again on Kenyan and Swahili literatures, emphasizes the aesthetics of book production. Lola Shoneyin's chapter on the Aké Festival focuses on the "African world stage" and the Ake Review. She is more "concerned about what Africans think about the works of other Africans than what Western readers think of books authored by Africans." I find Doseline Kiguru's "Contemporary African Literature and Celebrity Capital" very detailed and exhilarating in its analysis of "celebrity capital." Penny Cart-wright discusses two of Binyavanga Wainaina's works as "reversing the global media lens." The last chapter discusses precolonial Fante treatises and essays as literature rather than history. The essays disproportionately represent African literature with eight chapters covering "world literature" issues in Eastern and [End Page 76] South African literatures, two dealing with West African productions, and one with the two Congo nations. There is no single chapter touching on the literature(s) of the Maghreb or North Africa. There are two essays on Nairobi alone, and, adding the essays on Wainaina and Swahili, about five chapters on Kenyan literary productions! This overemphasis on Eastern African literary representations in this book is not borne out by the reality of available literary productions in Africa. In many of the chapters that relate to Kenya and "engaging the world," Wainaina is focused on, and it becomes a form of overkill. There is the impression that world literature has only to do with fiction, as the notion of the novel as the "currency" of world literature is promoted. I believe poetry and drama can also be parts of world literature. "Kaisa," itself a poetic narrative, is the only poetry discussed. There are plays such as Wole Soyinka's Death and the King...

The African Origin of Civilization curated by Alisa LaGamma and Diana Craig Patch; Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room curated by Hannah Beachler, Michelle Commander, Ian Alteveer, and Sarah E. Lawrence

The African Origin of Civilization curated by Alisa LaGamma and Diana Craig Patch; Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room curated by Hannah Beachler, Michelle Commander, Ian Alteveer, and Sarah E. Lawrence

State aesthetics and the Other–Nature in disaster memorials

I examine the aesthetic (re)production of the state in disaster museums and memorials in a comparative analysis of the Wenchuan Earthquake Memorial in Beichuan, China, and the September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York. I explore how particular national imaginaries and narratives of the past were projected to produce narratives that cloak the chaos of catastrophe and channel powerful public emotions into a robust state imaginary operating heroically on an Other-Nature-Disaster without history. In China, the state is embodied by conventional faces of the state apparatus. By contrast, in New York, such leaders are notably absent. Instead, the focus is on “heroic” first responders that I argue constitute devolved encounters with the state—neither faceless nor portrayed by official leaders, but instead embodied by neighbors, friends, and everyday heroes. In both contexts, I find similar techniques of producing aesthetic assemblages within which, whether the proximal agent of suffering be human or no, any purportedly external perturbation creates a crisis of state integrity that is discursively cloaked in the language of the Nature of the Other and this is partially accomplished by enframing emergencies in carefully delimited timeframes.

Inter-imperiality: Vying Empires, Gendered Labor, and the Literary Arts of Alliance

Inter-imperiality: Vying Empires, Gendered Labor, and the Literary Arts of Alliance

Using grey-quality function deployment to construct an aesthetic product design matrix

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a systematic approach to transform customer requirements (CRs) into product engineering characteristics (ECs). Traditional QFD relies on market research or customer questionnaires to collect a series of ambiguous and uncertain CRs. As a result, evaluating the weighting of CRs and determining the design matrix between CRs and ECs have become the focus and difficulty of QFD. This paper proposes the grey system theory in artificial intelligence technology combined with QFD to develop grey-QFD to solve the issues mentioned before. First, collect the average evaluation values between the aesthetic images and customer satisfaction of representative products. The grey prediction GM (1, N) model is used to obtain the weight of aesthetic needs relative to customer satisfaction and import it into the left QFD. Second, the domain experts decomposed the product form into a morphological analysis table, and fuzzy Delphi screened key ECs and imported them into the ceiling of QFD. Finally, grey relationship analysis established the aesthetic product design matrix between CRs and ECs, and calculated and ranked the final weights of each ECs by using grey relationship degree. The research uses the security camera in the smart home as an experimental object. After operating the proposed grey-QFD, the aesthetic quality of the target product (lively, intelligent, friendly, personalized, and fashionable) and the optimization of the corresponding product ECs are obtained. The result provides a theoretical reference for designers and significantly improves customer aesthetic satisfaction.

Research on the correlation mechanism between eye-tracking data and aesthetic ratings in product aesthetic evaluation

It is an open question whether the results of human evaluations of product aesthetics can be reasonably predicted from eye-tracking data. In this paper, we investigate the correlation mechanism between eye-tracking data and product aesthetic ratings so that the eye-tracking data can form a scientific reference in product aesthetic evaluation to better guide product design. It is proven that the four chosen eye-tracking indices, including total fixation duration, fixation count, visit count and total visit duration, are significantly correlated with product aesthetic ratings, and it is possible to achieve objective quantification of product aesthetics. The correlation between eye-tracking data and product aesthetic ratings is analysed, and an evaluation model of the product aesthetic correlation mechanism is proposed based on eye-tracking data. Experimental results demonstrate that product aesthetic evaluation is not mysterious or unique and can be reasonably described through data analysis and mathematical algorithms. If the correlation mechanism between eye-tracking data and product aesthetics is well established, the scientific evaluation of product aesthetics can be easily achieved.

Research on the Integration of Intangible Elements and Cultural and Creative Product Design

In addition to aesthetics and knowledge, the pursuit of cultural and creative product design also needs to move towards popularity and dissemination, with the aim of making the design of cultural and creative products more in line with market development needs. Integrating intangible cultural heritage elements with cultural and creative product design, mainly with intangible cultural heritage as the core, integrates the concepts and characteristics of cultural and creative product design with intangible cultural heritage elements to enhance the connotation and aesthetics of cultural and creative products, while also promoting the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage culture. From this, integration analysis is carried out, and a path to achieve integration is found to improve the cultural, aesthetic, and social value of intangible cultural and creative products.

Tokio descubre México

This is a case study that analyzes the cold-war era policies of the Mexican government with respect to art exhibitions. In Washington, DC, in 1953, an exhibition of ancient Japanese art opened and thus ended the artistic invisibility of Japan that stemmed from the Second World War. Following this sign of “official rehabilitation,” Mexico presented a compendium of much of the history of Mexican art in Japan in 1955. The exhibition, Mekishiko Bijutsu-ten, reproduced an exhibition archetype that had been formalized decades earlier, by building itself around three large nuclei: ancient, modern, and popular art. There were in fact three exhibitions—each coordinated by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA, Mexico’s national institute of fine arts)—with pavilions at the Venice Biennale of 1950 and at Paris’s Museum of Modern Art in 1952. Together, they demonstrate the power of the INBA over ideas about Mexican art. The adjustments in the selection of works sought to reveal aesthetic parallels with Japan and generate cultural empathy. At the time, Mexico was triumphantly promoting its art as a product of an artistic renaissance that had occurred after the 1910 Revolution, an avant-garde that was seen as a possibility for the future of Japan. The Mekishiko Bijutsu-ten, too, was received as a novel proposal to activate old artistic forms for contemporary aesthetic production. This practice contrasted with the Japanese view of the issue, which had generally experienced as disruptive attempts to modernize the past. Thus, the exhibition fostered the transfer of cultural strategies.

Drawn to the gloss: Examining the effect of product reflection on product aesthetics

AbstractWhile advertising products with reflections is a common industry practice, this research is the first to investigate their impact on product aesthetics. Reflections are endowed with an inherent shine since they are naturally formed by the interaction of light with an object and a reflecting surface. We draw upon this property along with Evolutionary Psychology (EP) research documenting an intrinsic human attraction towards gloss to predict their positive effect on product aesthetics. Further in line with the EP principles, we propose that this effect is mediated by enhanced pristineness perceptions about the product in the presence of its reflection in the ad. Finally, we draw upon the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to identify product design complexity as a boundary condition for the positive effect of reflection on product attractiveness perceptions. For a product with relatively high (vs. low) design complexity, with design being the focal aspect that is elaborated via a central route, we predict the effect of a peripheral stylistic cue like product reflection to attenuate. Three experimentally designed studies employing different product types offer empirical support to these predictions. Our work extends prior marketing research studying the effects of executional elements in advertising on consumers' product reactions, particularly the aesthetic impact of product reflections as creative stylistic cues. The managerial implications of this work span both traditional and digital marketing channels. Incorporating a product reflection in advertising can work as an easy‐to‐implement option that can help practitioners elevate product pristineness and aesthetics. On the other hand, avoiding their use when advertising products with relatively complex designs can save both ad space and money.

The Influence Innovation Has on the Visual Appearance and Aesthetic Preference of Architectural Products

The importance of innovation for architectural products in the building industry increases due to global competitive markets and users’ increased value given to the visual aesthetics of products. Visual appearance is crucial in architecture and product design and influences users’ product choices in many ways. Substantial research on innovation exists concerning users’ purchasing, adopting, and recommending it to others, but little research investigates the link between product innovation and aesthetic preference. This gap in knowledge prompted our investigation. Quantitative analysis of a survey of 114 respondents from Australia was conducted in this study to examine whether innovation plays a significant role in perceiving the aesthetic preference of an architectural product more than other visual appearances. Standard multiple regression using SPSS V28 was applied for statistical data analysis. Results uncovered that innovation explained the highest percentage of variance in overall aesthetic preference, and the innovativeness of a product strongly influences the visual appearance and aesthetic preference. The findings of this study offer new insight into the level of innovation for new product development where visual appearance is of high importance.

Can power predict consumers’ preferences for aesthetic products? The moderating role of locus of control

Can power predict consumers’ preferences for aesthetic products? The moderating role of locus of control

Improving the visual impressions of wood-based craft products through two-dimensional engraving of patterns

Small enterprises in product craft bases are considered to be more resilient in facing the challenges of the current pandemic condition, despite a decline in income during the pandemic’s peak. Craft products are one of the sub-sectors of the creative economy that has a contributor to Indonesia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Competition occurs between the producers of these crafts products where the makers present products that show aesthetic value and elements of the product’s function. Craft products always put forward a stunning visual appearance so that the product is in demand and purchased by consumers. To struggle with the increasingly fierce competition, the quality of visual impressions that are continuously generated must be established. This research focuses on attempts to improve the visual appearance that has the impact of presenting the aesthetics of craft products by using a two-dimensional engraving approach. The engravings are processed using a sandblasting technique. The study process used a pre-experimental design approach, and the results of the improving visual impressions were evaluated using a questionnaire step which was analyzed using factor analysis. The study results show a positive response to changes in visual perceptions, indicating an increased aesthetic perception that is better than the previous craft products. The final study shows that applying two-dimensional engraving patterns on craft products effectively improves visual and aesthetic impressions.

Exploration and Practice of Cultivating Multidimensional Design Innovation Ability

With the development of society and the improvement of people's living standards, consumers ' demand for cultural and creative products shows a trend of diversification and individualization, and people are becoming more and more picky about the aesthetics of cultural and creative products. Cultural and creative products should not only carry the use function and aesthetic function of the product, but also contain rich connotations of culture and art. Due to the lack of systematic theoretical and practical support, most product designers design a product based on their own experience and inspiration. Such a product is difficult to accurately and efficiently meet consumers' consumption needs . How to let design students use innovative methods to learn design is an important part of educational cultural and creative design methods. Based on the method of innovative design, it analyzes the excellent work , and strives to provide a certain basis and reference for the design education of cultural and creative products .