Dear Cheryl, Chuck, Klaus and Eduardo
The way that we have had a smooth transition from Rosan's "Design
Cognition" to Cheryl's "Basic Level Aesthetics" is very interesting.
Both involve emotive and cognitive processes that are significant to the
understanding of design decision making and problem solving. I tend to
agree with Klaus that we may need to look well beyond biological
responses alone to include progressive learning through experience and
also on cultural and generational factors that govern both these issues
in a major way.
If we look at basic level senses and feelings they already include a
number of pre-linguistic sensations _ tactual, auditory, visual, bodily,
including emotions, fear, moods, sensual feelings, to name a few. From
here we may move up to language and math mediated experiences and
expressions that lead to the "Ah-Ha" effect of discovery, both through
language and poetry as well as through pure image appreciation and their
judgement which may form the very basis of our aesthetic experience. I
agree with Chuck that it is not only linguistic although the linguistic
medium dominates our explorations. Prof John Chris Jones has reiterated
in his recent "Daffodil 31" a link to his website that suggests that
thinking does not need words, by quoting a mail from his friend, Cedric
Wisbey <http://www.softopia.demon.co.uk/2.2/digital_diary_04.05.14.html>
and I tend to agree with this view from my own experience.
Cheryl seems to be suggesting the existence of a universal basic level
of aesthetic which I am not sure if we can isolate these, and even if we
do as to how useful these would be for design appreciation and design
research. Eduardo's suggestion of Math induced aesthetic experience
supported by his example of bridges does show that intellectual
appreciation need not be linguistic alone but it could be aided by
geometric appreciation (visual mathematical) as well and as designers we
have believed this to be true for a very long time. Further the validity
and performance of structures can be felt in the GUT by a coming
together of prior knowledge of physics, materials and configuration and
an appreciation of the particular example at hand. Many forms of
aesthetic appreciations have ben modelled after the specifically
selected math proportioning systems, particularly the Golden Section in
the appreciation of Western Art and Architecture.
However in my view our cognitive abilities and aesthetic sensibilities
are dictated by our past experiences, learning, and our cultural
upbringing and our maturation within a given culture through education
in etiquette and in reflection and practise. While this goes well beyond
the "Basic Level Aesthetic" that is being suggested by Cheryl, I think
that we may have to look at this level very critically when we are in
search of the universal in aesthetic sensibilities.
Taste buds are governed by culture, my pickles, my food, my likes and
dislikes...... leading to the common expression taken literally.....
"one man's food is another's poison".....in music we have so many
classes, the classical, genteel, hi-brow, to the common everyday lullaby
which is conventional to each culture and the popular and experimental,
each of which evokes different responses from the initiated and the
novice. Chinese classical, Indian classical and Western classical can
perhaps be in one class of music that is institutionalised by each
respective culture but are very different from each other in terms of
the aesthetic sensibilities that are needed for its true appreciation.
Similarly stylised, individualised and personalised forms exist in art
and in music and in other cultural manifestations of cultural expression
such as drawing, dance, thought, language and form.
So where does the basic level (purely biological?) end and the cultural
and tutored levels (semantic and semiotic culturally mediated?) begin?
With warm regards
M P Ranjan
from my office at NID
7 June 2004 at 3.30 pm IST
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Prof. M P Ranjan
Faculty of Design
Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives
Project Head, Bamboo & Cane Development Institute, Agartala
Faculty Member on the NID Governing Council
National Institute of Design
Paldi
Ahmedabad 380007
INDIA
Email: <[log in to unmask]>
Fax: 91+79+26605242
Home: 91+79+26610054 (or) 91+79+26639692 ext 4095
Work: 91+79+26639692 ext 1090
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klaus krippendorff wrote:
>
> cheryl and chuck
> cheryl's drawing on lakoff and johnson is very much to the point.
> their work suggests to me that we may want to rethink the notion of basic
> "level" in this context, levels are always logical constructions. feelings
> have no level, they are just felt. experiences have no level, they are just
> experienced. kinesthetic experiences of the kind you mentioned (and of
> which johnson writes in particular in his the body in the mind) are
> beginnings subsequentially to which children learn, for example, what people
> say when pushing, pulling, twisting, etc., thus entering language into
> experiences.
SNIP SNIP
i suggest experiences are culturally or
> even generationally constrained, not entirely biological or developmental.
> i was recently talking with an educator in engineering. we talked about the
> difficulty of today's engineering education. whereas previous generations
> grew up with mechanical toys and learned to dis- and re-assemble them,
> today's children grow up with plastic toys that are cheap and can't be
> fixed, and computers that do not offer basic mechanical experiences. so, it
> is far from so that early experiences are necessarily shared. only when the
> environment consists of similar things and presents similar problems to all
> may we have the impression of sharing a history.
> but this is only an impression, brains work the way they do and do so quite
> differently, despite common environments.
> klaus
>
> klaus krippendorff
SNIP SNIP
>
> On 6/5/04 11:02 AM, "cheryl akner-koler" <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Lakoff and Johnsson give very specific description of basic level:
> > actions, spatial relations and forced movement such as push, pull, twist,
> > drive, dimensions, position, start stop, continue etc. These qualities are
> > "imported" as Susanne Langer says directly to our senses and become part
> of
> > our momentary existence. We do not need to interpret through a dictionary
> > there meaning... you feel when some one is pushing you. a small child and
> > adult are equally capable of experiencing these non metaphorical
> > experience. (The child perhaps even better because of the why children use
> > their bodies to gain embodied knowledge.)
> >
> > Common expression irregardless of culture and language is for me basic
> > level. I believe it is in this non linguistic area that design may build
> > its domain which transparently moves to bring together semiotics,
> metaphors
> > function, ergonomics, cultural meaning etc...
>
> Dear Cheryl,
> Good reply, but your emphasis on design and some gestalt based on feedbak(?)
> in the post I was responding to, threw me off. Since Design is always an
> intentional act interpreted against prior experience, basic level events
> such as you describe have to be interpreted and applied to a focal situation
> to change it. One may feel a push at the basic level but it has no bearing
> on a situation until it is interpreted - not by looking at a dictionary but
> through reflective thinking and recall. Similarly, spatial relations are
> there to be sensed, but must be attended to consciously in designing.
> Momentary existence is not designing.
>
> I believe that primary emotions are basic level and have intentionality.
> That basic level intentionality must then be interpreted to be felt and
> then/also focused by language. Klaus?
>
> Best wishes for your research presentation.
>
> Chuck
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