Digital media, and especially the widespread use of the internet, challenge our experience of embodied presence and consequently force us to rethink the definition of the ‘human’ body that informs ...our social practices. Starting from the online documentations of Guy Ben-Ary’s bio-artwork cellF (2015), Alvin Lucier’s seminal experimental music piece Music for Solo Performer (1965), and Stelarc’s performance RE-WIRED / RE-MIXED (2015) the present article participates in this debate by asking: what type of embodied identity is contoured in online specta(c)torship? From a methodological point of view, the article resonates with Mieke Bal’s insistence on the importance of the case study in art theory and in the philosophy of art. It aims at performing a philosophical intervention with respect to the contemporary understanding of embodiment starting from the experience proposed by the encounter with specific artworks.Drawing on the case studies mentioned above and on theories of embodiment formulated in a diversity of contexts — such as affect theory (Seigworth and Greg, Clough), feminist critique (Grosz, Butler), performance studies (Salazar Sutil) and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze —, the article contends that the problematic of the embodied subject, such as it appears in online specta(c)torship, is that of an ongoing misrecognition: an ongoing decentring of the thinking subject (of the cartesian cogito) in a continuous renegotiation of the bio-techno-logical ‘self’ that grounds the ‘I’ and is in turn grounded by it.
Digitalni mediji, a posebno raširena uporaba interneta, izazivaju naše iskustvo utjelovljene prisutnosti i posljedično nas tjeraju da preispitamo definiciju ‘ljudskog’ tijela koje informira naše društvene prakse. Polazeći od internetske dokumentacije o bio-umjetničkom djelu Guya Ben-Aryja cellF (2015.), temeljnom eksperimentalnom glazbenom djelu Alvina Luciera Music for Solo Performer (1965.) i Stelarcovoj izvedbi RE-WIRED / RE-MIXED (2015.), ovaj članak sudjeluje u ovu raspravu postavljajući pitanje: koja je vrsta utjelovljenog identiteta oblikovana u online gledateljstvu? S metodološkog stajališta, članak je u skladu s inzistiranjem Mieke Bal na važnosti studije slučaja u teoriji umjetnosti iu filozofiji umjetnosti. Cilj mu je izvršiti filozofsku intervenciju u odnosu na suvremeno razumijevanje utjelovljenja polazeći od iskustva koje sugerira susret s određenim umjetničkim djelima. Oslanjajući se na gore spomenute studije slučaja i na teorije utjelovljenja formulirane u različitim kontekstima — poput teorije afekta (Seigworth i Greg, Clough), feminističke kritike (Grosz, Butler), studija izvedbe (Salazar Sutil) i filozofije Gillesa Deleuze —, članak tvrdi da je problematika utjelovljenog subjekta, kakva se pojavljuje na internetu specta(c)torship, jest stalno pogrešno prepoznavanje: trajno decentriranje subjekta koji razmišlja (kartezijanskog cogita) u neprekidnom ponovnom pregovaranju biotehnološkog ‘ja’ koje utemeljuje ‘ja’ i zauzvrat je njome utemeljena.
U ovom radu bavim se pitanjem angažirane filozofije s naglaskom na estetiku i filozofiju umjetnosti. Pozivajući se na neke konkretne probleme o kojima se raspravlja unutar ovih domena – napose ...problem klimatskih promjena, ekološke krize i nemoralne umjetnosti – pokazujem da filozofija može biti angažirana na dva načina: (i) u svojoj težnji za propitkivanjem društvene zbilje, kulture, ljudskog iskustva i strategija koje čovjek koristi da bi u tom iskustvu uvidio smisao i vrijednosti; (ii) u težnji da kroz svoj doprinos razumijevanju takve zbilje i tog iskustva doprinese boljitku pojedinca i društva. Rad započinjem ukazujući na povezanost filozofskih pitanja i osnovnih intelektualnih težnji čovjeka kao društvenog i kulturnog bića, ali i autonomnog spoznavatelja i vrednovatelja. U drugom dijelu odgovaram na dva prigovora koja se mogu uputiti angažiranoj filozofiji: (i) prigovoru koji ukazuje na nedostatak konsenzusa među filozofskim odgovorima (problem neslaganja) i (ii) prigovoru koji ističe irelevantnost filozofskih debata za naše društvene prakse.
In this paper, I address the question of engaged philosophy with an emphasis on aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Referring to some specific problems discussed in these areas – in particular climate change, ecological crisis and immoral art – I demonstrate that philosophy can be engaged in two ways: (i) in its aspiration to question social reality, culture, human experience and the strategies for making sense of and finding value in that experience; (ii) in the aspiration to contribute to the well-being of individuals and society through its contribution to understanding that reality and experience. First, I point to the connection between the philosophical questions and the fundamental intellectual aspirations of human beings as social and cultural beings, but also as autonomous knowers and valuers. Second, I respond to two objections that can be directed against engaged philosophy: (i) one that points to a lack of consensus among philosophical responses (the problem of disagreement), and (ii) one that highlights the irrelevance of philosophical debates to our social practice.
The problem of genre explosion Malone, Evan
Inquiry (Oslo),
10/2022, Volume:
ahead-of-print, Issue:
ahead-of-print
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Genre discourse is widespread in appreciative practice. It should be no surprise then, that philosophers of art have also been interested in genre and in genres. However, in their accounts, ...philosophers have so far focused on capturing all of the categories of art that we think of as genres and have focused less on ensuring that only the categories we think are genres are captured by those theories. Each of these theories populates the world with far too many genres because they call a wide class of mere categories of art genres. I call this the problem of genre explosion. In this paper, I survey the existing accounts of genre and describe the kinds of considerations they employ in determining whether a work is a work of a given genre. After this, I demonstrate the ways in which the problem of genre explosion arises for all of these theories and discuss some solutions those theories could adopt that will ultimately not work. Finally, I argue that the problem of genre explosion is best solved by adopting a social view of genres, which can capture the difference between genres and mere categories of art.
The Invention of Taste provides a detailed overview of the development of taste, from ancient times to the present. At the heart of the book is an intriguing question: why did the sensory attribute ...of human taste become a social metaphor and aesthetic value for judging cultural qualities of art, fashion, cuisine and other social constructions? Unique amongst the senses, taste is at once a biologically derived sense, private, personal and individual, yet also a sensibility which can be acquired, shared, and communicated. Exploring the many factors that defined the evolution of taste – from medieval morals and medicine to social and cultural philosophy, the rise of aesthetics, birth of fashion, branding trends, and luxury worship in the age of mass consumption – Luca Vercelloni’s ambitious text provides readers with an outstanding introduction to the subject, making it the cultural history of taste. Now available for the first time in English, Taste features a new final chapter and a preface by series editor David Howes. Rich in detail and examples, this interdisciplinary work is an important read for students and researchers in sensory studies, philosophy, sociology and cultural studies, as well as gastronomy, fashion, design, and branding.
This article is a criticism of the narrative self-understanding offered by advocates of Ordinary Aesthetics. Even though the frustration with the philosophy of art (in contrast with philosophical ...aesthetics) is, in many ways, an overdetermined result, the sense of the ordinary as available through the withdrawal of this art-centred concern is misguided. This article argues that the reported death of art and the seemingly consistent suggestion that “anything goes” do not relieve contemporary philosophy from its being situated precisely in the wake of these practices of sense-making. I claim that Ordinary Aesthetics is dealing in an illusory conceit to the extent that defences of Ordinary Aesthetics are indebted to a demand that aesthetics may be a living field of philosophical inquiry today only if the fate of artworks is deleted from that narrative. Arguing this point requires an account of the idea of the death of art, associated with Hegel but perhaps more recently with Danto, and I sketch how Danto’s account does not cohere with the account provided in Ordinary Aesthetics. But because the claim of Ordinary Aesthetics amounts to a claim about the capacities of human sense-making independent of historical trajectories and a sense of the ordinary as that which is just available to a timeless abstraction of the human sensorium, my criticism of Ordinary Aesthetics requires a deeper defence of the relation of the faltering of narratives of art with the philosophical effort to make sense of ordinary experiences. Doing so requires that I provide alternatives: what I regard as two related though quite different philosophical approaches, namely, Cavell’s Ordinary Language Philosophy (which is startlingly absent from defences of Ordinary Aesthetics) and the program of a philosophical aesthetics elaborated in Adorno.
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