Aesthetic Investigations https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/ <p>The aim of the journal <em>Aesthetic Investigations</em> is to develop contemporary debates in the philosophy of aesthetics, and initiate new ones—and to do this from any available angle. We are open to any contributions, but to generate new discussions we also issue specific calls.</p> en-US <div class="item copyright"> <p>Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:</p> <p>Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a <a title="Creative Commons License" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Creative Commons Attribution License</a> that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. <strong>Note: </strong>up to volume 4 issue 1, an incorrect copyright line appears in the PDFs of the articles.</p> <p>Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.</p> <p>Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See <a href="http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html" target="_new">The Effect of Open Access</a>).</p> </div> editor.aesthinv@gmail.com (Rob van Gerwen) infoaesthinv@gmail.com (Jurry Ekkelboom) Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:56:15 +0100 OJS 3.3.0.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 Arts and Politics: What Has Ontology to Do With It ? https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/13574 <p>Introduction to the issue Arts, Ontology and Politics. This text gives a survey of the articles included in the special issue Arts, Ontology and Politics and of the challenges that these articles have to deal with in approaching the central them.</p> Arthur Cools, Jan Bierhanzl Copyright (c) 2023 Arthur Cools, Jan Bierhanzl https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/13574 Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100 The Disobedience of Seeing https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12980 <p>This paper addresses the subject’s relationship to visual culture and its norms. I start from the fact that contemporary visual culture presents itself as a constant circulation of images that always bring with them a certain ‘politics of truth’, which includes a normative framing of what is and is not considered human. I propose the possibility of an ethico-political resistance to this framing on the part of the perceiving subject, who is simultaneously shaped by this framing. First, I focus on the problem of the disobedience of seeing as an ethico-political stance towards the ‘politics of truth’ in the framework of Foucault’s thought as it applies to several of Hito Steyerl’s artworks (‘Politics of Truth’ and ‘The Courage of Truth’). I next discuss the tension between the circulation of images and the agency of the seeing subject with reference to Judith Butler’s ethical and political approach to visual culture, arguing for an ethics of photography that transcends the Foucauldian framework.</p> <p> </p> Jan Bierhanzl Copyright (c) 2023 Jan Bierhanzl https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12980 Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100 Engagement for Engagement’s Sake https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12879 <p>The aim of this paper is to search for a new, contemporary, form of literary engagement by avoiding a return to the 20<sup>th</sup> century idea of literary engagement that presents literature either as autonomous and un-political or as explicitly committed to some political cause. Taking the Dutch poet laurate Lieke Marsman's debut novel <em>Het tegenovergestelde van een mens </em>(The opposite of a human being) as an exemplary case study, this paper stresses that the literature of the millennial generation explores a new and different form of engagement, a form that is consonant with our 21<sup>st</sup> century living conditions, that are more complex, fluid, and volatile than they have ever been.</p> Aukje van Rooden Copyright (c) 2023 Aukje van Rooden https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12879 Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100 Dissolved Politics and Artistic Imagination. On Kristeva's Revolution and Revolt https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12845 <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In her work, Julia Kristeva uses two disparate concepts: revolution and revolt. In this article we will try to outline these concepts as different approaches to the relations between power, art and psychoanalysis. By placing the concepts of revolt and revolution in dialogue with each other, and by pointing out that the dialogue departs from the notion of </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">experience</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, we will attempt to reconstruct the important contribution that Kristeva's work offers. Her perspective reveals that artistic expression is linked to a specific kind of politics (</span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">dissolved politics</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">). Kristeva's view of literary and psychoanalytic practice is then, we argue, something that can contribute to its realisation, albeit in a limited way.</span></p> Lenka Vojtíšková Copyright (c) 2023 Lenka Vojtíšková https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12845 Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100 Democratising Conceptual Art https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12781 <p>In this paper I elaborate upon the elitist character of the mainstream theories on conceptual art. I show that the elitism is founded on wrong presumptions concerning the relation between artists and spectators. Working from the philosophy of Jacques Rancière, I reject the hierarchical structure present in the mainstream theories on conceptual art. Instead, I propose to take a ‘democratic turn’, as understood by Rancière. In such an outlook, the contribution of the spectator is revalued as equally active and creative as the contribution of the artist. The democratic turn has serious consequences for the theoretical foundation of conceptual art. We can no longer maintain that the conceptual work of art is <em>solely</em> the artist's idea, nor that the material appearance is negligible. Furthermore, the democratic alternative opens up conceptual art for a broader audience, while the very core of its practice remains intact, namely that the idea behind it is essential. But it adds an important caveat: what the idea represents is more than what the artist initially had in mind.</p> Alexandra Van Laeken Copyright (c) 2023 Alexandra Van Laeken https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12781 Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100 On Purposefully Poor Images: Aesthetic Encounters with Alienation https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12085 <p>This article introduces the concept of purposefully poor images. Building on Hito Steyerl’s theory of poor images as images that travel through networks and lose resolution and information, (2009) the theory of the purposefully poor image looks at the phenomenon of images that are produced with the intention of looking poor. These are images that draw attention to their own process of objectification by satirising their degradation. In showcasing the material markers of objectification, purposefully poor images allow for an aesthetic encounter with the experience of alienation. This article draws the autonomist Marxist approach of Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi (2009) to argue that their place within semiocapitalism allows purposefully poor images to draw attention to and overcome alienation from within capitalist relations. It is argued that purposefully poor images are a product of collective circulatory logics within digital capitalism, but also a powerful tool for aesthetically representing alienation.</p> Lucie Chateau Copyright (c) 2023 Lucie Chateau https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12085 Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100 Beyond Autonomy and Activism: https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12083 <p><span lang="EN-US">This paper takes the particular case of poetry to chart a middle route between the extremes of the autonomist and activist dimensions of understanding aesthetic politics. I argue that the politicality of poetry lies neither in the politics of the author or the text (activist), nor in their removedness vis-à-vis concrete political situations (autonomist). Instead, politicality needs to be located in the intersubjective dynamic between readers and poems or works of art more broadly. I propose an intersubjective pragmatist framework of interpretation, which takes the actualization of a decolonial and anti-identitarian political plurality as the basis of poetry’s politicality. I develop the framework by bringing together three conceptual frameworks: Hannah Arendt’s theory of political plurality, Édouard Glissant’s concepts of relation and opacity, and John Dewey’s pragmatist theory of aesthetic experience. At its core is the concept of ‘poetic understanding’, </span><span lang="EN-US">a transformative quality of understanding that facilitates between the reader and the text a dynamic and contingent process of mutual transformation and constitution. I explore the potential of such understanding as a ground for political community. </span></p> Divya Nadkarni Copyright (c) 2023 Divya Nadkarni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12083 Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100 The Art of Political Representation https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12091 <p>Rarely in the postwar period has the western system of representative democracy seemed more criticised and less respected. From historically low turnouts to the disparagement of the motives of politicians as individuals and as a class, voters seem increasingly disillusioned and disengaged. Questions of representation are centrally at stake in both art and politics and the premise of this essay is that recent art can help us understand the current democratic predicament. The particular work which provokes my reflections is Devolved Parliament, Banksy’s thirteen foot long oil painting of the House of Commons, which recently sold for a record breaking sum. Its sale price no doubt says much about the state of the art market in the UK and elsewhere, but what, if anything, does the painting have to say about contemporary politics?</p> Mihail Evans Copyright (c) 2023 Mihail Evans https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/12091 Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100 Another Outcry for Artistic Relevance https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/13645 <p>Editor's column</p> Rob van Gerwen Copyright (c) 2023 Rob van Gerwen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/13645 Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100 A Review of Sherri Irvin, Immaterial: Rules in Contemporary Art https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/13537 <p>I don't think abstracts are needed for reviews.</p> Sue Spaid Copyright (c) 2023 Sue Spaid https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/13537 Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100 Everyday Aesthetics - Review https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/13535 <p>This article reviews the volume 'Everydayness: Contemporary Aesthetic Approaches', edited by Lisa Gombini and Adrián Kvokačka. Thomas Froy assesses the relation, explored by the contributing authors, between the notion of the 'everyday' and the field of aesthetics, focussing on questions about the 'who' and the 'what' of everyday aesthetics, and its place in the modern world.&nbsp;</p> Thomas Froy Copyright (c) 2023 Thomas Froy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/view/13535 Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100