Practical Aesthetics

Description

This collection brings together artists and theoreticians to provide the first anthology of a new field: Practical Aesthetics. A work of art already contains its own criticism, a knowledge of its own which need not be conceptual or propositional. Yet today, there are many approaches to different forms of art that work on the brink between science and art, 'sensible cognition' and proposition, aesthetic knowledge and rational knowledge, while thinking with art (or the artistic material) rather than about it. This volumes presents ways of thinking with different forms of art (film, sound, dance, literature, etc), as well as new forms of aesthetic research and presentation such as Media Philosophy, the audiovisual essay, fictocriticism, the audio paper, and Artistic Research. It reveals how writing about art can become 'artistic' or 'poetic' in its own right: not only writing about artistic effects, but producing them in the first place. This takes art not as an object of (external) analysis, but as a subject with a knowledge in its own right, creating a co-composing 'conceptual interference pattern' between theory and practice. A 'practical aesthetics' thus understood, can be described as thinking with art, in order to find new ways to create worlds and thus to make the world perceivable in different ways.

Bernd Herzogenrath is Professor of American Studies at the University of Frankfurt, Germany.

Tracing the matter of artworks and technical artifacts from within its own inherent qualities, Practical Aestheticsproposes an operational approach to its objects of research. These paradigmatic case studies re-interpret the aesthetics of multi-media artworks and artifacts as an encounter between human cognition and the physically real.With its focus on moving images, sound art, and other artistic and media-cultural practice, Practical Aesthetics is the academic companion to practice-based artistic research. * Wolfgang Ernst, Professor of Media Theories, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany * Bringing together some of the most interesting voices at the intersections of theories and practices of media and culture, Practical Aesthetics raises important questions and ventures fascinating answers concerning the shifting terrain between art and technology-thus opening the path towards a rigorously philosophical way of thinking with and through material objects and practices. * Shane Denson, Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies, Stanford University, USA * Herzogenrath's Practical Aesthetics offers a timely approach to thinking about aesthetics, not merely as a philosophical exercise, but as a fulcrum for commencing new modes of living in complex times. * Jason Wallin, Professor of Media and Youth Culture Studies in Curriculum, The University of Alberta, Canada *