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Hello There can be a different take on beauty. I did the following experiment. I replaced the word beauty with hunger and re-read some of the earlier emails. I was doing this to address the question of objectivity. The way hunger is rooted in our biology which makes us produce food one could see ‘beauty’ as something rooted in the biology that makes us create beauty all around us. Hunger itself can be placed in the objective basket and taste etc is subjective. Similarly what you like is subjective but what makes you like is objective. But the beauty I am referring to is much deeper. It is connected with fundamental principles of life. Like hunger, and cognition beauty is rooted in life’s need to sustain and maintain life. Not to create art, or for self- expression etc but to live! I had noticed among non-literate artisans that they produce beautiful things as if it was very natural for them to create beauty. Which looks like whatever they did, just turned out to be beautiful. This seemed like an ordering principle in our biology itself and not an afterthought unlike what we do in modern society. As I was living with non-literate people I noticed that this happens not only while doing 'craft' but also in every action they performed. From activities in the kitchen- cutting, kneading, making etc- and various actions to the way body is held. The need to keep the kitchen clean and ordered stems from this. There was no thought- how to make things beautiful as beauty is an integral aspect of action or beauty is part and parcel of the Being. Art is a mental construct whereas beauty is part and parcel of our biological makeup. It is the organizing principle of life that ensures the economy of energy- aptness in action and in action. Beauty is a dynamic configuration of appropriateness inherent in nature. We are born aligned to this configuration and in people in indigenous communities where there is no ‘teaching’ keep up this alignment spontaneously and organically as they grow up. So naturally what they do turns out to be beautiful. Modernity, due to its mental preoccupation, derails us from this alignment. Instead of awakening us to our inherent qualities, education in general and art and aesthetic education in particular conditions us to the mental construct called art and to its various theories on aesthetics. Experience is replaced by mental myth-making. Preoccupation with the manifested hides the root which is what makes all this happen. For a person who has not been fragmented by modernity what he does is in line with this natural beauty. In fact, I am exploring the integral nature of the aesthetic cognitive structures. I am aware that I have not been able to articulate well. The reason is that English, not my language and more than that there is a lack of clarity in my own exploration. So hope what i mentioned are to be held lightly. I have uploaded a paper on my academy page. see link https://www.academia.edu/7467149/BIOLOGICAL_ROOTS_OF_BEAUTY I would like to share with you a few videos that show beauty seamlessly present in the being without becoming 'art' A girl spontaneously arranging bricks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF0Tqy9BPc0 (I ran a school for three years and documented what children were doing spontaneously. I have around 4000 videos and images of children which I am using to study what and how children learn the real world) traditional brass artisan- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W_2WrXzfAI More on work and 'Taal' (rhythm). Building worker hammering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aISPHTsu6Ig lady pounding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2NVHGnmTyc A man walking with a load on head https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2fx6ClBTv0 My videos on beauty, knowledge Re-imagining beauty - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvbwDVGs4Vw&t=2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciiARi5PXTg&t=183s http://www.thethird-eye.co.uk/there-is-no-movement-without-rhythm/ Rhythm (Foli) There is no Movement without Rhythm (2010) A FILM BY THE BROTHERS THOMAS ROEBERS AND FLORIS LEEUWENBERG. Colour, 11mins. Sound Recording and Sound Design by Bjorn Warning. Translator and Rhythm Specialist Thomas Bonenkamp. With special thanks to the chief Djembefola: Mansa Camio. Jinan On 12/09/2018, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Susan and all, > > Your summary was very useful. Here are a few notes by way of addition. > > I’ve found Erving Goffman’s notion of Framing to be extremely useful in > discussions of this type. In the case of beauty we can use the idea both > literally and metaphorically. The distinctions and differences between > beauty in science, indeed in particular branches of science, and beauty in > design are then much easier to comprehend. > > The confusions and disagreements seem to arise when we talk across or > between different frames. And I think that the confusion grows when we try > to transcend all frames and try to define ‘beauty’ in a transcendent > philosophical sense. The next step, I think, is a form of madness (at least, > intellectually). > > I also think that framing is an important concept in design. When we as > designers take on a design “problem”, we usually do so either implicitly or > explicitly within a frame. One of the common experiences we have as > designers is finding ourselves wanting to shift the boundary of the > “problem”. That, however, is another thread and a different type of > discussion. > > To summarise, I suggest it might be useful to use the notion of framing to > give us a much broader and ecumenical sense of beauty: the goddess to whom > many of us pray. > (Please pardon my obvious sexism) > David > -- > > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> > Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design > Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > -- Jinan, TEXT DISTORTS, DIGITAL DESTROYS, WORLD AWAKENS http://existentialknowledgefoundation.org/ http://rethinkingfoundation.weebly.com/ reimaginingschools.wordpress.com http://sadhanavillageschool.org/ https://www.youtube.com/user/sadhanavillagepune https://www.youtube.com/user/jinansvideos www.re-cognition.org http://designeducationasia.blogspot.com/ http://awakeningaestheticawareness.wordpress.com/ https://independent.academia.edu/JinanKodapully 09447121544 ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------