In 1984 the renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson wrote that we are human in good part because of the particular way we affiliate with other organisms. They are the matrix in which the human mind originated and is permanently rooted, and they offer the challenge and freedom innately sought. To the extent that each person can feel like a naturalist, the old excitement of the untrammeled world will be regained. I offer this as a formula of reenchantment to invigorate poetry (...) and myth: mysterious and little known organisms live within walking distance of where you sit. Splendor awaits in minute proportions.1 This poetical quote nicely captures the essence of Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis. While the notion .. (shrink)

In The Responsive Environment, Larry D. Busbea takes up this concept of environment as an object and method of design at the height of its aesthetic, technical, and discursive elaboration. Exploring novel models of environmental perception, patterning, and control as developed by Gregory Bateson, Edward T. Hall, Wolf Hilbertz, György Kepes, Marshall McLuhan, Nicholas Negroponte, Paolo Soleri, and others, he shows how living space was reimagined as a domain capable of modification through input from its newly sensitized inhabitants.

What designers do and how we all, as users of designed things, live with their products raises fundamental philosophical questions about how we should live, and how the nature of design work and good design relates to our lives. Jeffrey Petts presents a holistic and pragmatist approach to the philosophy of design. Acknowledging the importance of function in design without downplaying the aesthetic dimension, Petts relates the manner of evaluating design to the designing process itself (...) as demonstrated in the work of, for example, William Morris, Walter Gropius and Bauhaus, Charles and Ray Eames, and Dieter Rams. This metacritical and everyday approach to the philosophy of design expresses a commitment to real aesthetics, connecting concrete issues in both practice and experience to philosophical ideas, and reveals the role aesthetics plays in considerations about the good life. (shrink)

We live in an age in which outer space has changed from a theme for flights of science fiction to the actual locus of exploration and travel.1 Space no longer has merely speculative significance for thinking about possible worlds; it has become a real factor in understanding the nature and conditions of the human world that we are constantly refashioning. Our entry into outer space brings with it changes in conditions and experience that require us to rethink the concepts through (...) which we comprehend environment and act environmentally. (shrink)

The Aesthetics of Design offers the first full treatment of design in the field of philosophical aesthetics, challenging the discipline to broaden its scope to include the quotidian objects and experiences of our everyday lives and concerns ...

“If good design tells the truth,” writes Robert Grudin in this path-breaking book on esthetics and authority, “poor design tells a lie, a lie usually related... to the getting or abusing of power.” From the ornate cathedrals of Renaissance Europe to the much-maligned Ford Edsel of the late 1950s, all products of human design communicate much more than their mere intended functions. Design holds both psychological and moral power over us, and these forces may be manipulated, (...) however subtly, to surprising effect. In an argument that touches upon subjects as seemingly unrelated as the Japanese tea ceremony, Italian mannerist painting, and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation, Grudin turns his attention to the role of design in our daily lives, focusing especially on how political and economic powers impress themselves on us through the built environment. Although architects and designers will find valuable insights here, Grudin’s intended audience is not exclusively the trained expert but all those who use designs and live within them every day. (shrink)

“If good design tells the truth,” writes Robert Grudin in this path-breaking book on esthetics and authority, “poor design tells a lie, a lie usually related... to the getting or abusing of power.” From the ornate cathedrals of Renaissance Europe to the much-maligned Ford Edsel of the late 1950s, all products of human design communicate much more than their mere intended functions. Design holds both psychological and moral power over us, and these forces may be manipulated, (...) however subtly, to surprising effect. In an argument that touches upon subjects as seemingly unrelated as the Japanese tea ceremony, Italian mannerist painting, and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation, Grudin turns his attention to the role of design in our daily lives, focusing especially on how political and economic powers impress themselves on us through the built environment. Although architects and designers will find valuable insights here, Grudin’s intended audience is not exclusively the trained expert but all those who use designs and live within them every day. (shrink)

In "The Aesthetics of Imagination in Design," Mads Folkmann investigates design in both material and immaterial terms.

The rapid acceleration of societal change has subjected contemporary individuals to prolonged periods of diverse pressures, leading to substantial psychological strain, resulting in anxiety, depression, and compromised mental well-being. Within this context, the home has evolved into a vital refuge for modern individuals, offering both physical and psychological respite. Through experimental intervention, this study examines two distinct residential groups: those adhering to traditional housing and those residing in characteristic folk houses, specifically Gannan Hakka architecture. Analysing the psychological state of contemporary (...) individuals and integrating Gannan Hakka architectural elements into folk house design through a psychologically informed approach, this research aims to enhance residents’ aesthetic experiences and alleviate psychological distress. The study involved 120 volunteers with varying psychological stress levels, categorised into characteristic and traditional folk house groups. Psychological assessments evaluated stress, self-efficacy, and quality of life. Findings reveal significantly improved psychological well-being, self-efficacy, and quality of life among the characteristic residential group, affirming the benefits of Gannan Hakka architecture integration. This research underscores the importance of addressing modern individuals’ environmental needs and proposes the integration of Gannan Hakka cultural elements into residential design to enhance well-being. Contribution: This study demonstrates the application of Hakka culture in contemporary housing profoundly influences residents’ lives, enabling both relaxation and a deeper cultural connection. This integration facilitates a comprehensive understanding of Hakka culture, promoting its preservation. Notably recognised for hospitality and diligence, Hakka culture enhances individuals’ appreciation of tradition, fostering physical and mental rejuvenation. These findings offer valuable insights for practical theology scholars and practitioners exploring the impact of religious aspects on modern residential design from a psychological perspective. (shrink)

Evidence affirms that aesthetic engagement patterns our movements, often with us barely aware. This invites an examination of pre-reflective engagement within cities and also aesthetic experience as a form of the pre-reflective. The invitation is amplified because design has political implications. For instance, it can draw people in or exclude them by establishing implicitly recognized public-private boundaries. The Value Sensitive Design school, which holds that artifacts embody ethical and political values, stresses some of this. But while emphasizing that (...) design embodies implicit values, research in this field lacks sustained attention to largely unconscious background biases or values, rooted in cultural attitudes and personal interests, that lead theorists and planners—often too narrowly—to promote design organized around specific values such as defensibility. In examining these points, I draw on J. J. Gibson, a central figure for some writing on aesthetics and cities, and whom pragmatists and phenomenologists in turn influenced. Taking a cue from pragmatists in particular, I argue Gibson’s perceptual theory of affordances entails a theory of values, meaning our perception and therewith movements are inherently value-based. I advocate design that accounts for relatively constantly held values such as safety, while also handling the vast pluralism that exists and not crushing the aesthetic vibrancy of city life. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Design as Problem‐Solving or Design as Fashion? The Rise of Design As a Profession: Is Design a Response to Consumerism? Consumerism, Self‐expression, and The “Invention” of Design Consumerism Is Not Essential to Design Were Neolithic Flint Tools Designed? Can We Avoid Designing? – The Idea of “Useless Work” The Function and Value of Fashion.

In the first half of the twentieth century there was a remarkable convergence of art and design in De Stijl, Constructivism and the Bauhaus. But in the second half of the twentieth century fine art relinquished its liaison with design due to the influence of Dada and Surrealism's postromantic antagonism to practical-functionalism. Dada and Surrealism and postmodern fine art are characterized by a critique of the dominant social discourse of functionalism and the demand for a sublime poetics to (...) be brought into everyday life. This article argues that the apparent antipathy between postmodern fine art and design can be ameliorated if we critically analyse interpretations of evolutionary theory by postromantic philosophers such as Nietzsche, Bergson, and Deleuze and Guattari. When Bergson notes that practical-functional reasoning was created by evolution he reveals a flaw in the pursuit of an aesthetics that is totally opposed to commonsense and practical-functionalism. And when we turn to Deleuze and Guattari we find another valuable concept in the form of their notion of the machinic, which assists further in reconciling the postromantic emphasis on the sublime with the practicality of mechanism. Moreover, Deleuze and Guattari's notion of the machinic is informed by chaos theory, which allows further elaboration in terms of complexity theory. Complexity theory can be understood as a process philosophy that has no need to figure the sublime in terms of a mysterious force of nature because the mystery is located within complex interactions among a manifold of components, what one might refer to as a cosmic, machinic, combinatoire that arises out of what Christopher Langton has called the edge of chaos. This makes it possible to replace the emphasis on desire as the fundamental force of nature evident in Nietzsche, Bergson, Deleuze and Guattari with a complexity-theoretical concept of a cosmicmachinic combinatoire. It is then possible to formulate a machinic, evolutionary aesthetics that can reconcile the postromantic demand for sublimity with the demand for practical-functionalism that lies at the heart of the discipline of design. In place of the modernist machine aesthetic that informed De Stijl, Constructivism and the Bauhaus we would have a postmodernist machinic aesthetic. (shrink)

David Berry and Michael Dieter: Introduction -- Florian Cramer: What is post-digital? -- Malcolm Levy and Christine Paul: Genealogies of the new aesthetic -- David Berry: The post-digital constellation -- Lukacs Mirocha: Communication models, aesthetics and ontology of the computational age revealed -- Katja Kwastek: How to be theorized: a f*** academic essay on the new aesthetic -- Daniel Pinkas: A hyperbolic new aesthetic -- Stamatia Portanova: The genius and the algorithm: reflections on the new aesthetic as a computer's (...) vision -- Lev Manovich and Alise Tifentale: Selfiecity: exploring photography and self-fashioning in social media -- David Golumbia: Judging like a machine -- Caroline bassett: Not now? : feminism, technology, postdigital -- Geoff Cox: Postscript on the problem of temporality in the post-digital -- Michael Dieterdark: Patterns: interface design, augmentation and crisis -- Sean Cubitt: Data visualisation and the subject of political aesthetics -- Mercedes Bunz: School will never end: on infantilization in digital environments: amplifying empowerment or propagating stupidity? -- Jussi Parikkathe : City and the city: London 2012 visual (un)commons -- Shintaro Miyazaki: Going beyond the visible: new aesthetic as an aesthetic of blindness? -- Thomas Apperley: Glitch sorting: minecraft, curation and the postdigital -- Marc Tuters: Through glass darkly: Google's gnostic governance -- Vito Campanelli: New aesthetic in the perspective of social photography -- Søren Bro Pold and Christian Ulrik Andersen: Aesthetics of the banal: "new aesthetics" in an era of diverted digital revolutions -- Wendy Chunnet: Works now: belated too early. (shrink)

In this paper the concept of knowledge in seen as embodying dialogue and learning in a shared practice. Sharing a practice involved sharing representations of practice. This necessitates the sharing of experiential knowledge at various levels and in various forms. It is proposed that participatory design can therefore be seen as consisting in dialogue and learning for the development of future practices and representations. The discussion in this paper is situated within the domain of landscape architecture. A study is (...) made of their co-operative practices, which are evolved, in order to show the need for participatory embodied activity (whether expressed verbally or physically) in sharing practical knowledge (e.g. of aesthetic judgement). (shrink)

The article, speaking from the double perspective of media history and political aesthetics, discusses the impact of behaviourism and early computer technology on the design of learning environments in the United States after the Second World War. By revisiting B. F. Skinner’s approaches to behavioural techniques and cultural engineering, and by showing how these principles were applied first at US design departments, and later to prison education, it argues that cybernetic and behavioural techniques merged in the common (...) field of design and education. Behavioural design of the 1960s and 1970s furthered the cybernetic dream of total control over the world by addressing the learning environment rather than the individual, and operated within a space of possibility that was governed equally by technology and aesthetics. Behavioural design can therefore be understood as a political technology. (shrink)

BackgroundVideo-calls have proven to be useful for older care home residents in improving socialization and reducing loneliness. Nonetheless, to facilitate the acceptability and usability of a new technological intervention, especially among people with dementia, there is a need for user-led design improvements. The current study conducted focus groups with an embedded activity with older people to allow for a person-centered design of a video-call intervention.MethodsTwenty-eight residents across four care homes in the South West of England participated in focus (...) groups to aesthetically personalize and ‘dress-up’ the equipment used in a video-call intervention. Each care home was provided with a ‘Skype on Wheels’ device, a wheelable ‘chassis’ comprising an iPad or tablet for access to Skype, and a telephone handset. During the focus group, residents were encouraged to participate in an activity using colorful materials to ‘dress-up’ SoW. Comments before, during and after the ‘dress up’ activity were audio recorded. Framework analysis was used to analyze the focus group data.ResultsOlder people, including seven with dementia were able to interact with and implement design changes to SoW through aesthetic personalization. Themes arising from the data included estrangement, anthropomorphism, reminiscence, personalization, need for socialization versus fear of socialization and attitudes toward technology. After this brief exposure to SoW, residents expressed the likelihood of using video-calls for socialization in the future.ConclusionCare home residents enjoy engaging with new technologies when given the opportunity to interact with it, to personalize it and to understand its purpose. Low cost aesthetic personalization of technologies can improve their acceptability, usability, and implementation within complex care environments. (shrink)

A discussion of the many-faceted relationship between aesthetic theory and architecture. It analyzes the relationship between buildings and designs, explores the notion of architectural experience, and covers modern architecture's aim to deepen the connection between usefulness and design.

This article combines critical, visual and aesthetic theory to argue that the very act of design is a Utopian process. Crucially, the Utopian dimension is not simply a matter of subject matter or utility. Rather, it lies in the act of formal arrangement and composition, and therefore can apply to visual texts with no apparent subject matter at all. The argument is grounded in Ernst Bloch’s critical theory of Utopia, which sees Utopia as a process rather than a destination. (...) It is illustrated with a case study of Navajo weaving, in tandem with an analysis of Navajo creation mythology. It concludes by arguing that we need to go beyond creation theory to a critical theory of creativity. Utopia is not something that we can delegate either to nature or to the supernatural because, as Bloch declares in The Spirit of Utopia, ‘Life has been put into our hands’. (shrink)

The collection provides an analysis of the concept of beauty in the evaluation of experiments. What properties do practicing experimenters value? How have the aesthetic properties of scientific experiments changed over the years? Secondly, the volume looks at the role that aesthetic factors, including negative values such as ugliness, as well as experiences of the sublime and the profound, play in the construction of an experiment and its reception. Thirdly, the chapters provide in-depth historical case studies from the Royal Society, (...) which also allows for a study of the depiction of scientific experiment in artworks, as well as contemporary examples from the LHC and cases of AI-designed experiments. Finally, it offers a exploration of the commonalities between how we learn from experiments on the one hand, and the cognitive value of artworks on the other. (shrink)

Color charts, or grids of evenly spaced multicolored dots or squares, appear in the work of modern artists and designers. Often the artist/designer distributes the many colors in a way that could be described as “random,” that is, without an obvious pattern. We conduct a statistical analysis of 125 “random-looking” art and design color charts and show that they differ significantly from truly random color charts in the average distance between adjacent colors. We argue that this attribute generalizes results (...) in subjective randomness in a black/white setting and gives further evidence supporting a connection between subjective randomness and what is esthetically pleasing. (shrink)

In the face of massively increased technological complexity, it is striking that so many of today’s computational and networked things follow design ideals honed decades ago in a much different context. These strong ideals prescribe a presentation of things as useful tools through design and a withdrawal of aspects of their functionality and complexity. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, we trace this ‘withdrawal program’ as it has persisted in the face of increasing computational complexity. Currently, design is (...) in a dilemma where computational products can be seen as brilliantly designed and engaging to use yet can also be considered very problematic in how they support hidden agendas and often seem less than trustworthy. In this article, we analyse factors shaping this emergent ethical dilemma and reveal the concept of _a widening rift_ between what computational _things actually are and do_ and _the ways in which they are presented as things for use_. Against this backdrop, we argue that there is a need for a new orientation in design programs to adequately address this deepening rupture between the aesthetics and ethics in the design of computational things. (shrink)

Introduction: a peculiar experiment -- Kinaesthetic knowing: the nineteenth-century biography of another kind of knowledge -- Looking: Wölfflin's comparative vision -- Affecting: Endell's mathematics of living feeling -- Drawing: the Debschitz school and formalism's subject -- Designing: discipline and introspection at the Bauhaus -- Epilogue.

In philosophical aesthetics, discussions on design objects place the notion of Functional Beauty at the fore. Such a philosophical approach can be found in Jane Forsey’s book The Aesthetics of Design that focuses on the notion of function to promote the aesthetic value of design and develops an interpretation of Kantian Dependent Beauty around it. Lucía Jiménez Sánchez has recently put forward several flaws of Functional Beauty accounts. She presented several practical cases as evidence for (...) the narrowness of Functional Beauty accounts. Two cases are presented against Jane Forsey’s theory of Dependent Beauty, holding that it excludes other properties from appreciation that are not necessarily related to functionality, i.e., expres- sive properties. The purpose of this article is to show that these criticisms leveled at Jane Forsey’s proposal for an aesthetic theory of design are unfounded and are based on a misun- derstanding of the structure of judgments of beauty in her system. Despite this, these criticisms highlight the need to clarify the purpose of the aesthetics of design. (shrink)

Data produced by humans and machines is more and more heterogeneous, visual, and location based. This availability inspired in the last years a number of reactions from researchers, designers, and artists that, using different visual manipulations techniques, have attempted at repurposing this material to add meaning and design new perspectives with specific intentions. Three different approaches are described here: the design of interfaces for exploring satellite footage in novel ways, the analysis of urban esthetics through the visual manipulation (...) of collections of user-generated contents, and the enrichment of geo-based datasets with the selection and rearrangement of web imagery. (shrink)

Interest in sensory atmospheres and architectural and urban ambiances has been growing for over 30 years. A key figure in this field is acclaimed German philosopher Gernot Böhme whose influential conception of what atmospheres are and how they function has been only partially available to the English-speaking public. This translation of key essays along with an original introduction charts the development of Gernot Böhme's philosophy of atmospheres and how it can be applied in various contexts such as scenography, commodity (...) class='Hi'>aesthetics, advertising, architecture, design, and art. The phenomenological analysis of atmospheres has proved very fruitful and its most important, and successful, application has been within aesthetics. The material background of this success may be seen in the ubiquitous aestheticization of our lifeworld, or from another perspective, of the staging of everything, every event and performance. The theory of atmospheres becoming an aesthetic theory thus reveals the theatrical, not to say manipulative, character of politics, commerce, of the event-society. But, taken as a positive theory of certain phenomena, it offers new perspectives on architecture, design, and art. It made the spatial and the experience of space and places a central subject and hence rehabilitated the ephemeral in the arts. Taking its numerous impacts in many fields together, it initiated a new humanism: the individual as a living person and his or her perspective are taken seriously, and this fosters the ongoing democratization of culture, in particular the possibility for everybody to participate in art and its works. (shrink)

L’articolo colloca i videogiochi nell’area di ciò che chiamo “esperienze progettate”. Le esperienze progettate sono esperienze – nel mondo reale o attraverso i media – che sono progettate per sollecitare specifici effetti o affetti. Nei miei lavori precedenti, ho indagato il modo in cui gli insegnanti, nelle loro classi, o i designer dei videogiochi, nei loro giochi, progettino esperienze volte, in entrambi i casi, a condurre verso l’apprendimento. Tuttavia, le esperienza progettate possono essere volte a sollecitare attività diverse dall’apprendimento. Esse (...) possono anche cercare di sollecitare cose come il cambiamento sociale, i cambiamenti di atteggiamento o di comportamento, le emozioni o altri effetti del (o sul) corpo, la mente o l’anima. Nell’articolo considero la relazione tra i videogiochi intesi come esperienze progettate e i videogiochi intesi come arte. (shrink)

It is well-established that the experience of nature produces an array of positive benefits to mental well-being. Much less is known about the specific attributes of green space which produce these effects. In the absence of translational research that links theory with application, it is challenging to design urban green space for its greatest restorative potential. This translational research provides a method for identifying which specific physical attributes of an environmental setting are most likely to influence preference and restoration (...) responses. Attribute identification was based on a triangulation process invoking environmental psychology and aesthetics theories, principles of design founded in mathematics and aesthetics, and empirical research on the role of specific physical attributes of the environment in preference or restoration responses. From this integration emerged a list of physical attributes defining aspects of spatial structure and environmental content found to be most relevant to the perceptions involved with preference and restoration. The physical attribute list offers a starting point for deciphering which scene stimuli dominate or collaborate in preference and restoration responses. To support this, functional definitions and metrics—efficient methods for attribute quantification are presented. Use of these research products and the process for defining place-based metrics can provide (a) greater control in the selection and interpretation of the scenes/images used in tests of preference and restoration and (b) an expanded evidence base for well-being designers of the built environment. (shrink)

Monroe Beardsley wrote that there would be no aesthetics if everyone was silent about works of art.1 Similarly, there would be no philosophical aesthetics of design if no one ever talked critically about, but instead quietly enjoyed or put up with, our built environment and things of everyday use. But whereas Beardsley could draw on an established and distinct body of art, music, and literary criticism to set the aims and scope of aesthetics, a similar metacritical (...) approach to the aesthetics of design has no directly equivalent body of critical work. That's not to say designed things aren't objects of critical appraisal raising judgments of a distinctively aesthetic character. Charles Rennie Mackintosh's... (shrink)

Souvenirs play an important role in tourism development. They act not only as mementos, enabling tourists to relive and retain the memory of a particular journey, but also as main income sources for tourism destinations and stakeholders. Many intangible cultural heritages have been developed into souvenirs, especially products made by traditional craftsmanship. ICH souvenirs facilitate cultural value that is understandable to tourists, who appreciate the design of the ICH souvenirs and their contributions to a pleasure and memorable journey. Based (...) on the theory of beauty and the preference-for-prototypes theory, this study explored how symmetry design of ICH souvenirs influences tourist’s aesthetic pleasure. As ICH souvenirs development is a commercialization process, and over-commodification would lead to cultures being lost and tourists’ disappointment, the authenticity concept is applied in order to address over-commodification. Thus, this study analyzed the moderating role of tourists’ authenticity perception of ICH souvenirs. Two lab-based between-subjects design experiments were employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Data analysis entailed multiple regression analysis, one-way ANOVA, and two-way ANOVA. The findings showed that symmetry of ICH souvenir design had a positive impact on tourists’ aesthetic pleasure. Under the symmetric-design condition, tourists’ typicality perception of ICH souvenirs positively mediated the main relationship, while under the asymmetric-design condition, tourists’ novelty perception had a negative mediating effect. The moderated mediation effects were in accord with hypotheses to some extent; at a relatively high level of authenticity perception, the indirect effect of symmetry on aesthetic pleasure via typicality perception increased as authenticity perception rose; at a relatively low level of authenticity perception, the indirect effect of symmetry on aesthetic pleasure via novelty perception declined as authenticity perception rose. This study identified critical factors influencing tourists’ aesthetic pleasure with ICH souvenirs, and it revealed the internal influencing mechanisms and moderating effects under different design conditions. These findings give some insights to ICH practitioners for using souvenir design to improve tourists’ aesthetic pleasure. (shrink)

Visions and derisions of utopia -- Ernst Bloch and utopian critical theory -- Homo aestheticus -- Case study: Navajo design, culture and theology -- Archetypes, the unconscious and psychoanalysis -- Roger Fry and the language of form -- From Genesis to Job -- Homo absconditus.

This paper suggests that the imbrication of user-friendly software and the posthuman has increasingly been revealed as an intrinsically arborescent relationship, one premised upon the striation of personal information through different forms of software media and allowing for unprecedented avenues of control and subjective manipulation. My analysis begins with a conceptualisation of user-friendliness, tracing its development as the majoritarian style of software design. In assessing the effects of this process of subjective imbrication with arborescent software technology, it is suggested (...) that one effect of the pathological asignification of instrumentality in the representation of software is the genesis of a topological space which allows for a capacity for control over the subjective becoming of others through control over digitally mediated perception. To illustrate this point, the revelations concerning Cambridge Analytica's use of targeted advertisements on Facebook to affect voting preferences during the 2016 American presidential election are examined as an example of the quotidian domination which is characteristic of the subjective condition of arbormosis. This analysis can be applied to issues of gender, technology, and modes of subjective control. (shrink)

This book traces and explores the evolution of taste from a design perspective: what it is, how it works and what it does. Karin Tehve examines taste primarily through its recursive relationship to media. This ongoing process changes the relationship between designers and the public, and our understanding of the relationship of individuals to their social contexts. Through an analysis of taste, design is understood to be an active constituent of social life, not as autonomous from it. This (...) book reclaims a term long dismissed from interior design and unveils taste's role as a powerful social and political agent within systems of aesthetics, affecting both its producers and consumers. Each chapter discusses a taste concept or definition, analyzes its reciprocal relationship with media, and explores its implications for interior design. Illustrated with 70 images, taste's relationship to media is viewed through a variety of different lenses, including books, photography, magazines, internet, social media and algorithms. Written for students and scholars of interior design and related design fields, this book will be a helpful resource for all those interested in the question of taste, and is an invitation to produce and consume all media critically. (shrink)

Our paradigms of aesthetic value condition the philosophical questions we pose and hope to answer about it. Theories of aesthetic value are typically individualistic, in the sense that the paradigms they are designed to capture, and the questions to which they are offered as answers, center the individual’s engagement with aesthetic value. Here I offer some considerations that suggest that such individualism is a mistake and sketch a communitarian way of posing and answering questions about the nature of aesthetic value.

Scholars criticize privileging aesthetics over social and ecological considerations in park design. I argue that the real culprit is not aesthetics, but aestheticism. Aestheticism treats aesthetic objects as if they were ontologically distinct from everyday objects. Aestheticism in park design—treating parks like artworks to be admired like paintings—dovetails into treating parks like representations of a romanticized wilderness: of pristine, untouched landscapes. I argue that aestheticism is a means of constructing an ontological distinction between the beholder and (...) the beheld, for landscapes are not truly pristine if they are sullied by human presence. As an alternative, and while drawing on the works of John Dewey and Yuriko Saito, I argue for a continuity between everyday objects and aesthetic objects. I also draw attention to the question of whose every day is privileged and propose to introduce Wittgenstein’s concept of multi-aspectivity in the analysis of everyday affordances. (shrink)

The monograph is focused on the subjectivity of aesthetic experience and the problem of rational interpretation of emotionality. The text studies why does an aesthetic experience exist, what is its content and what is its informational role and structure? Has beauty any cognitive value? Can we analyse beauty? In what sense we can think about the information content of aesthetic experience? The second topic of the book is a cognitive role of emotionality and its research. Why we have emotions? What (...) can they tell us about yourself and about the world? The methodology of the study is designed as a phenomenological research of subjective experience that is combined with the newest results in Cognitive science research. --Page 4 of cover. (shrink)