Aesthetic Questions Research Articles

Art Philosophy: Ai Weiwei's Forever (2003)

AbstractMy discussion of Ai Weiwei's Forever (2003) explores this work in response to three philosophical and aesthetic questions: the role of the artworld context in understanding a work; the idea of the artwork as philosophical; and the idea that conceptual works can also be cultural‐political. I suggest that it is the interplay of immediate perceptual encounter and background artworld knowledge that brings the meaning of the work to life. Weiwei's Forever shows how an artwork can be aesthetic (engaging our sensuous perceptual experience), philosophical (posing the question of its own status as an artwork), and cultural‐political (opening the Gallery space to the broader social realities that the work obliquely references). In these ways I claim Forever is a philosophical work that is conceptual and cultural‐political at once.

Hronotop u teoriji pripovesti i pripovedanja

The interrelations of time and space in literature, or chronotope, as it is called by Bakhtin in his book Questions of Literature and Aesthetics, constitute a fundamental unity reflecting unbreakable bonds between space and time (time as the fourth dimension of space). He defined chronotope as a literary category whose meaning is related to genre, with chronotopes characteristic to each genre and its different configurations of space and time. In literature, the primary category in the chronotope is time. The term is also used in mathematics and it was introduced as part of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The paper sheds light on the features of chronotope in the theory of narrative.

Creative work of Edmund John Millington Synge in literary and critical perception of Korney Chukovsky

The article considers the specifics of Korney Chukovsky’s perception of dramatic art of Edmund John Millington Synge (1871–1909), one of the greatest personalities of national revival of Ireland. Synge, who created his works in English, not only revived legends of his nation, but also expanded the idea of the Irish national originality, having offered his own vision of the image of an Irish of his time. Korney Chukovsky is the author of one of the first translations of Synge’s dramatic art into Russian (a comedy "The Playboy of the Western World") and of the introductory article to its publication in 1923. The article "Synge and His "Playboy"" reflects the Russian writer’s understanding of the moral and aesthetic questions of the play. According to Korney Chukovsky, tSynge's complex art method was formed under the influence of the ideas of revival of the national drama theatre. This direction in perception of Synge’s heritage was determinative in Russian literature and, in general, reflected the nature of the attitude of Russian cultural consciousness to the Irish playwright’s creative work.

The visual rhetoric of the aerial view: From surveillance to resistance

ABSTRACTWe live in a world increasingly photographed from satellites, planes, and drones. Many scholars have viewed aerial imagery through a dystopian lens, largely due to its use by the state and its legacy of military applications. While problematic uses of aerial images persist, this paper theorizes rhetorical potentialities of aerial imagery. We posit how aerial imagery creates these potentialities through strategies related to questions of visibility, scale, and aesthetics. Using case studies that illuminate these strategies, we demonstrate how they can be used to resist state and corporate interests, constitute new social movements, and invite contemplation of otherwise repellent political subject matter. Ultimately, we argue that with increased technological access and the ability to reconfigure norms of expertise, the aerial view presents both opportunities for civic engagement and counter-hegemonic potential.

Moving Together in an Era of Assembly

Editors Alana Gerecke and Laura Levin frame the central concerns and interventions of the issue. They insist that in this historical moment of Women’s Marches, Black Lives Matter, Occupy, and the Idle No More ‘round dance revolution,’ of flash mobs and pop-up culture, of relational art and postdramatic performance practices, we must think seriously about what is at stake in gathering and moving together in public spaces. Increasingly mainstream and increasingly evident, these collective reimaginings of quotidian practices, cultural consumption, and political resistance challenge the atomized ways we normally move through cities. In doing so, they pose questions of aesthetics, use, access, exclusion, density, and mobility “in resolutely physical terms” (Gerecke 42). What does it mean to show up and, more specifically, move together in these collective arrangements? How do different choreographic arrangements of public assembly shape and re-shape the social, the aesthetic, and the political?

신여성과 패션 그리고 오스카 와일드의 미학론

This essay investigates the connection between the notion of “new woman” in Oscar Wilde’s literary world and his aestheticism mainly focusing on his editorship of the monthly journal The Women’s World. When Wilde proclaims that “Life imitates art far more than Art imitates life” in “The Decay of Lying,” following the doctrine of aestheticism or “Art for Art’s sake,” he does not mean to discard or stay away from social and cultural reality. His enthusiastic involvement with the journal is sure to be an outstanding example of how much he tries to reconcile the gap between aesthetic solipsism and active socialism. Wilde’s pursuit of “new woman” and the media shows his immediate and intimate connection with the Victorian society. He is eager to present new types of women through his literary works such as Mrs. Erlynne in Lady Windermere’s Fan, Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax from The Importance of Being Earnest, and Salome from the eponymous tragedy. They can be called “female dandies” who are ready to be confident and courageous enough to resist the moral sense of conscience or any Victorian norm which is primarily fabricated around the ideal or “the angel in the house.” Further, since any particular gender role is not something prearranged or predetermined for both sexes, Wilde’s new woman is concerned with establishing her own identity by pursuing the sensuous and performative life which has been suppressed in the patriarchal and imperial society. In so doing, the aesthetic quest for new woman becomes an essential part of life in constructing her own self.

신여성과 패션 그리고 오스카 와일드의 미학론

This essay investigates the connection between the notion of “new woman” in Oscar Wilde’s literary world and his aestheticism mainly focusing on his editorship of the monthly journal The Women’s World. When Wilde proclaims that “Life imitates art far more than Art imitates life” in “The Decay of Lying,” following the doctrine of aestheticism or “Art for Art’s sake,” he does not mean to discard or stay away from social and cultural reality. His enthusiastic involvement with the journal is sure to be an outstanding example of how much he tries to reconcile the gap between aesthetic solipsism and active socialism. Wilde’s pursuit of “new woman” and the media shows his immediate and intimate connection with the Victorian society. He is eager to present new types of women through his literary works such as Mrs. Erlynne in Lady Windermere’s Fan, Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax from The Importance of Being Earnest, and Salome from the eponymous tragedy. They can be called “female dandies” who are ready to be confident and courageous enough to resist the moral sense of conscience or any Victorian norm which is primarily fabricated around the ideal or “the angel in the house.” Further, since any particular gender role is not something prearranged or predetermined for both sexes, Wilde’s new woman is concerned with establishing her own identity by pursuing the sensuous and performative life which has been suppressed in the patriarchal and imperial society. In so doing, the aesthetic quest for new woman becomes an essential part of life in constructing her own self.

Between standards and arts: Digitisation and restoration of audio material – a balancing act between authenticity and manipulation?

ABSTRACTWithin the broad discussion of technologies and algorithms for the digitisation and restoration of audio signals, the question of evaluation of the sounding result of audio transfers and restorations is still underrepresented. The paper outlines the philosophy of implication of different signal processing procedures on historical audio material and compares the professional guidelines of the audio archiving world with classical restoration in cultural heritage. Starting with a critical assessment of the source material and its artefacts, the discussion addresses ethical and aesthetical questions and traces the various stages between restoration, re-issue, re-mastering and re-interpretation.

The Politics of Intermediality in African Theatre Contexts

In this article, I discuss the politics of intermediality in African theatre contexts. My underlying assumption is that the study of intermediality is inevitably contextual in nature because intermediality is strongly linked to the sociopolitical and economic context. Jens Schröter explores the links between intermediality and ideological/politico-economic factors in his article “The Politics of Intermediality.” He argues that questions concerning intermediality are by no means purely theoretical or aesthetic questions; rather, they are laden with political connotations. Following Schröter, my approach emphasizes how different cultures understand media differences and their interaction in a given historical phase. Using examples from the Southern region of the African continent, this article navigates through divergent theories of African theatre in its attempt to understand how media interrelations are conceptualized within the theoretical discourses in the region.

Визуалният обрат в съвременната култура – мит или действителност?

The paper deals with aesthetic and sociological questions, posed by the increasing role of the visual in everyday cultural practices and particularly in contemporary art. In this context the theories of Jean Baudrillard and Guy Debord are mentioned critically. The conclusion of the author is that there is no reason to believe the problems of interpretation and the future of contemporary art are due to anything like specific visual turn of world culture nowadays. The visual leads to the rational, even to metaphysical if we are prepared to understand it.

From the End of Man to the Art of Life: Rereading Foucault’s Changing Aesthetics

In Foucault’s writing throughout the 1960s, in which he foregrounds the critical function of language and signification, works of art and literature – and works of avant-garde art and literature in particular – appear prominently and are the objects of sustained theoretical investment. In the 1970s, however, as Foucault moves away from his earlier concern with language’s capacity to dissolve “man” and begins to concentrate instead on the ways in which man is governed, works of art and literature no longer possess the same political promise for him and drop out almost completely from his writing. Yet the question of aesthetics does not disappear for him entirely, and, in his final years, he returns to it, though with his analysis now directed at what he calls an “art” or “aesthetics of life.” In this paper, I examine these developments with the aim of drawing out the connections between Foucault’s changing view of aesthetics and the larger transformations that take shape within his overall project. Against this background, I argue that Foucault’s call for an art of life, in which the individual develops techniques for continually reinventing his or her existence, does not necessitate abandoning the avant-garde aesthetic practices that he had previously advocated. Rather, I assert, his conception of an art of life – when read in conjunction with his theorization of critique as a “permanent” questioning of the limits imposed on us – offers a new framework for reimagining both the function of those practices and their legacies in culture today.

Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note

Hamilton and class

Abstract Using an intersectional Marxist analysis, this brief article surveys issues of, and related to, class in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical Hamilton, including questions of aesthetics, race, narrative, politics and history, as well as how class impacts access to the musical. Sekellick argues that, through its use of hip hop and colour-conscious casting, Hamilton deploys the affects and aesthetics of people of colour, as well as of revolution, to give an otherwise conservative bootstraps narrative about a white founding father a progressive feeling sheen. The author reads Hamilton as a neo-liberal version of America’s founding myths, a retelling of the American dream to suit diversified capitalist and political classes.

Irony, Conflict, and Tragedy in Cultural Analysis: Hip-Hop between Bourdieu and Nietzsche

Culture has increasingly been analyzed ironically in relation to social conflict, emphasizing themes of ideology, co-optation, and complicity in reproducing inequalities. Arguably the most sophisticated ironic cultural critique is provided by Bourdieu. Bourdieu’s critique is often criticized for reductionism, but without pursuing what is neglected by ironic reductionism. Nietzsche provides a remarkable counterpoint, offering both seminal resources for modern social criticism, and profound reflections on culture’s potential to affirm life with integrity and authenticity. Nietzsche’s analysis of classical Greek tragedy suggests how culture can collectively affirm life through art without illusions. The relative emphases and insights of these two critics are contrasted here in relation to the cultural phenomenon of hip-hop, addressing latent ideological baggage but also its social activism and tragic-realist aesthetic. Grounded in this discussion of hip-hop as predictably compromised, but also incisively defiant and painfully honest, a challenge is posed for cultural analysis to be critical without being dismissive of existential and aesthetic questions, or blind to the potentials of popular culture. Culture is neither as derivative as much social criticism would suggest, nor as autonomous as many artists and art critics would suggest. Cultural studies therefore must find a middle way, navigating between cynicism and naiveté.

First Nations Politics in a Climate of Refusal

As a nation, Australians celebrate their cultural heritage through purchasing works of art by leading Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. These works are held in all major State-owned galleries and in most of the private collections of serious art buyers in the country. Australians also champion and support key artistic works in dance and performance. There remains, however, a distinct tension between the willingness of (successive) governments to celebrate the symbolic value of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ creative works and governmental readiness to participate in or endorse any performance that might usher in meaningful structural or material change for First Nations people who, in 2018, are still excluded from the Australian Constitution.The focus of this paper is to consider the performative qualities of both the ‘Uluru Statement from the Heart’ (2017), written by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and presented to the people of the nation and to the government as an invitation to work together to achieve ‘Constitutional reforms’ for the First Nations people of Australia, and the Government’s response to this invitation via their Media Release and subsequent interviews. An analysis of the modes of address, the language used, and the aesthetic and ethical questions raised by each text, provides insight on the politics of speaking and listening in the current Australian political climate.

Cute Chaucer

ABSTRACTReading Sir Thopas through cuteness shifts critical attention from the tale’s generic classification to questions of aesthetics and affect. The production of cute features through infantilization and feminization triggers tender caretaking and sadistic aggression; the cute object is paradoxically held gently and squeezed violently. Under the duress of the cute response, the Chaucerian narrator, Thopas, and the text become deformed. The flattening of physical and textual bodies leads to the obliteration of verticality and depth. Drawing on the superflat movement in Japanese contemporary art, I argue that cuteness in Sir Thopas effects a compression of the text’s narrative layers and semiotic networks. Mirroring the horizontal, non-linear organization of the poem’s layout in medieval manuscripts, desire moves sideways across Sir Thopas. The lateral mobility and the agglutinating property of cuteness allow it to adhere to and cutify objects in its vicinity; the catalogues of romance tropes in Sir Thopas thereby function as cute object clusters within a late medieval middling household. Too much sticky sweetness, however, results in revulsion and not adoration. When the Host interrupts Chaucer and compares the poem to excrement, he enacts the labile fungibility of cuteness and disgust. Sir Thopas is both feces and a dainty thing.

The Foreskin Aesthetic or Ugliness Reconsidered

This article argues that to understand the role and place of the foreskin, we must address the aesthetic question that sits at its root. North American media often describe the foreskin as “ugly,” “gross,” or pejoratively “European”; all of which present, fundamentally, an aesthetic comment on what is pleasing. As such, this article investigates the aesthetic discourse surrounding the foreskin in relation to a range of materials that speak at or around the foreskin. In particular, it looks at sources deemed to be “common”—sex manuals, pregnancy manuals, and film and television—alongside theoretical and scientific studies. Undertaking a close reading of these materials, this article sheds light on the striking similarities that these distinct bodies of literature share and the way that aesthetics undergirds their arguments, often as a silent statement rather than exerted forcefully. Through this argument, this article breaks new ground on the way that we consider the foreskin, and, importantly, the aestheticization processes that shape our understanding of this seemingly ancillary component of the penis. Accordingly, this article contributes to a growing body of scholarship on the politics of the foreskin and circumcision by shifting the debate to consider the aesthetic.

Ekphrasis, photography, and ethical strategies of witness: poetic responses to Emmett Till

ABSTRACTPhotographs that bear witness to the violence and suffering of history clearly hold a great imaginative thrall and impetus for contemporary poets, as the vast body of poetic ekphrases of such images attests. In writing such poems, however, poets are confronted with fraught ethical and aesthetic questions, including: How can the ekphrastic poem empathise and engage aesthetically and ethically with the suffering of others? How can the poet write in a position of witness when absent from the event itself? What techniques, stances and other strategies can the ekphrastic poem deploy to testify to the abject photograph? This article addresses these questions via the timely case study of poetic responses to the post-mortem photograph of 1955 lynching victim Emmett Till, a subject of renewed interest in the wake of the furore surrounding artist Dana Schutz’s contentious 2017 ekphrastic painting Open Casket. This article considers poetic responses to the post-mortem photograph of Till by contemporary poets Kevin Young and R.T. Smith, and identifies metapoeticism—drawing attention to the poem’s status as a poem, and to the poet’s necessarily piecemeal and partial knowledge of the event—as a key strategy that fosters ethical engagement with the abject image.

СТИХОТВОРЕНИЕ П. А. ВЯЗЕМСКОГО «ПАЛЕСТИНА» В КОНТЕКСТЕ ДУХОВНО-ЭСТЕТИЧЕСКИХ ИСКАНИЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ СЕРЕДИНЫ XIX В.

The article considers the specificity of the literary embodiment of “the pilgrimage” theme in the poem “Palestine” by P. A. Vyazemsky. It is shown that the spiritual lyrics of the middle of the XIX century, while developing the traditions of Old Russian and ecclesiastical poetry, was simultaneously closely related to the aesthetic quest of its time - classical, romantic, realistic, which indicates the continuity of the spiritual tradition in Russian literature. The paper also highlights the importance of studying and rethinking the poetic heritage of P. A. Vyazemsky in the light of the religious and spiritual evolution of the writer in the second half of his creative and life path, in the 50s and 70s of the XIX century.