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Subject:

Re: Basic level aesthetics and density

From:

klaus krippendorff <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

klaus krippendorff <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 4 Jun 2004 14:32:39 -0400

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (131 lines)

sometimes epistemology helps clarifying issues:

according to dictionaries:  aesthetics is a theory of beauty and taste.
this theory is advanced in philosophy (perhaps now also in psychology and
cultural studies).

as a theory, it occurs in language (in the verbal interactions between
people).

chuck could be right in saying that everyone CAN have his or her own
aesthetics.  but not everyone has studied philosophy (or psychology or
cultural studies) and frankly, i very much doubt that everyone is able to
theorize his or her own sense of beauty, taste, and emotional response to
things.  if it were so, philosophers would have nothing to theorize and
would have to leave it to empirical researchers to tabulate the different
aesthetics in a population of people.

i would say that everyone RESPONDS differently to their environment
depending on their history of experiences, emotional situation, and
intentions to act.  when people start talking about their responses, they
use conventional words, metaphors, and other linguistic devices to explain
if not construct what beauty is.  these explanations may not be a formalized
aesthetics, but often make use of words that have shared social histories,
including in philosophical discourse.  would you be willing to look for
basic level aesthetics in ordinary talk?  then i would be with you in
exploring that.

i think it would be useful to keep the distinction between how people
explain themselves to each other and in relation to what they do with things
(on various levels: from ordinary talk to well articulated philosophical
discourse) and the bodily reactions they experience when engaging with the
things of their environment.

cheryl sounds right when she points to langer's evocative approach to
science (and aesthetics).  if it is to say something new, it becomes a
design problem, a problem of using language, or a communication problem,
only marginally an accurate account of visceral reactions.

klaus krippendorff
gregory bateson term professor for cybernetics, language, and culture
the annenberg school for communication
university of pennsylvania
3620 walnut street
philadelphia, pa 19104.6220
phone: 215.898.7051 (O); 215.545.9356 (H)
fax: 215.898.2024 (O); 215.545.9357 (H)
usa


-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf
Of Charles Burnette User
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 9:19 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Basic level aesthetics and density


Dear Cheryl

I said in full: "I believe that aesthetics are highly personal and so is
art. Otherwise, how could we have artists who ignore established
institutions of art - or rather counter them with their own institutions ie.
Warhol, Pollock, Laurie Anderson, etc. Thank whatever that we each have our
own aesthetic emotional response to any kind of object!"

Perhaps it would make things less dire for you if I qualified my last
sentence slightly by saying "we each have our own secondary level aesthetic
emotional response to the kinds of objects that stimulate such responses in
us." My point here is that our intentions, circumstances and reflections are
unique to us as individuals, even though we may come to share certain
preferences and experiences with others. You seem to be committed to some
absolute Platonic view of aesthetics that I clearly do not share.

Your idea and Langer's that an aesthetic response introduces "something that
is not known before" should be rephrased it seems to me as: introduces
something that is not known in the same way before. It is precisely our
effort to interpret something that we are stimulated by that calls on prior
feelings and knowledge to enable us to experience aesthetic pleasure - pain.
Aesthetic pleasure can be revisited with the same object - it therefore is
not something that always has a novel stimulus. A familiar response may be
rewakened.

Best,
Chuck



On 6/4/04 2:59 AM, "cheryl akner-koler" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Dear Chuck and all
>
> Based on what we have been discussing the past few days about basic level
> aesthetics then I can not understand that you ended your comment with such
> an contradictory conclusion.
>
>> that we each have our own aesthetic emotional response to any kind of
object!
>
> I for one can not accept such a general statement (other wise my whole
role
> in research and teaching would be futile.) However I do support the idea
> that within the area of aesthetics embedded in the  creative process  we
> should try to bring up our own aesthetical emotions which are not easily
> accessed.
>
> Susann Langer states that art like science is to acquaint the beholder
with
> something he has not known before. Then it follows that the  art should
> provoke something within in us which brings up feelings that have not
> confronted before. This level of aesthetics is closer to the development
of
> gestalt and what Langer calls significant form.
>
> We could continue on this line and leave basic level aesthetics for now
> since this also has to do with  mathematical "cry".
>
> Take care
>
> Cheryl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Langer, Susanne. Feeling and form. Charles Scribner´s sons New York 1953
>

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