The Energy Walk: Experimenting with Aesthetic Methods in STS?

Abstract

In 2014 the research group Alien Energy, based at the IT University of Copenhagen, performed an experiment into the potential of creative intervention as an ethnographic method, in researching the development of new energy forms, such as wave- and geothermal energy. To this end the Energy Walk was created: a carefully choreographed and digitally guided audio walk leading the participant around the harbour area of the Danish town Hanstholm, whilst telling stories of energy and infrastructures. In this paper I argue, that the walk manoeuvres a layered landscape of energetic and infrastructural visibility and invisibility, hereby sensitizing the participant to the manifold energy forms constantly present in our daily lives. Drawing on the aesthetic philosophy of John Dewey I argue, that in doing so, the walk effectively facilitates what he calls an aesthetic experience, and suggest that the walk might best be understood in terms of aesthetic experimentation as a relevant method in STS research.     

Does the experience of presence restore self-control?

A wide range of research suggests that the exertion of self-control is a limited resource or constrained by a motivational shift. Less attention, however, has been given to the question how self-control capacity can be restored. This study examined whether this restoration can be achieved by “presence,” the perceptual illusion of non-mediation. We suggest that the adoption of the mediated reference systems creates a “holiday from self” and restores self-control capacity. Depleted participants who saw an immersive video clip performed better in a subsequent self-control task than participants who saw a non-immersive video clip or were in a waiting group. But the concrete mechanism remains open: Self reported presence did not serve as a mediator.     

Therapy and the aesthetics of the self

Post-structuralists argue that personal identity is a function of societal power dynamics. This becomes especially problematic for persons recruited into problem-saturated identities. In this paper, inspired by Foucault's call for us to ‘create ourselves as a work of art’ (p. 262), I explore the therapeutic value of an aesthetic approach to identity. Instead of orienting to the client as one to be known and understood, we might envisage his or her life as an open-ended, never quite finalised oeuvre. Identity is therefore conceptualised not as something one ‘is’, but as a creative performance. A therapeutic case is presented to highlight some of the possibilities and challenges associated with such an approach.     

Resolving the Paradox of Phenomenology through Kant's Aesthetics: Between Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze

Commentators have claimed that the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze converge upon a spatial field of sensation which is prior to representation. This essay will contest these readings by showing that, for Deleuze, the pre-representational spatial field of intensity is fundamentally split from thought. This “gap” between sensation and thought is, for Deleuze, fundamentally temporal, in that thought is continually open and passive to being violated and transformed by the sensible and the sensible is continually being pushed beyond itself by a certain kind of thought. This violent exchange across the gap between thought and sensibility is found, by Deleuze, in Kant's notion of the aesthetic idea. On the contrary, for Merleau-Ponty, Kant's aesthetics imply a non-conceptual “ground” shared by both thought and sensibility. By contrasting these two readings of Kant's aesthetics, this paper reveals the basic divergence between the philosophies of Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty.     

Psychoanalysis,science, and art: Aesthetics in the making of a psychoanalyst1

This paper critically examines the relationship of psychoanalysis to science and art. Its point of departure is Michael Rustin's theorizing. Specifically, in considering the possibility of a psychoanalyst's having an aesthetic orientation, the author analyses: 1) the difficulty of there being any connection between psychoanalysis and science because science's necessarily presupposed subject‐object dichotomy is incompatible with transference, which, beginning with Freud, is basic to psychoanalysis; 2) the complex relationship between psychoanalysis and aesthetics using Maurice Merleau‐Ponty's philosophical perspective as well as Luigi Pareyson's theory of aesthetics; 3) the Kantian foundations of the psychoanalytic notion of art as the ‘containing form of subjective experience’ 4) intersubjectivity, without which clinical practice would not be possible, especially considering matters of identity, difference, the body, and of sensory experience such as ‘expressive form’; 5) the relationship of psychoanalysis and art, keeping in mind their possible convergence and divergence as well as some psychoanalysts' conceptual commitment to classicism and the need for contact with art in a psychoanalysts's mind set.     

实践美学视野中的自然鉴赏观

Appreciating nature may at its best feature have three levels of experience according to practical aesthetics. The first level is more sensuous as it largely pleases the ear and eye, the second level is more psychological as it chiefly pleases the mind and mood, and the third level is more sublimate as it mainly pleases the will and spirit. In Chinese culture the affinity between man and nature can be traced back to the traditional conception of tian ren he yi 天人合一 as heaven-human oneness, which will be ultimately conducive to the artistic realm or aesthetic state of being. This paper was delivered at the XVI International Congress of Aesthetics on “Changes in Aesthetics” held during 18–23 July 2004 in Rio De Janiero, Brazil.     

Musical Naturalism in the Thought of JI Kang

Wei-Jin period is characterized by neo-Daoism (xuanxue 玄學), and JI Kang lived in the midst of this philosophical exploration. Adopting the naturalism of the Zhuangzi, Ji Kang expressed his socio-political concerns through the medium of music, which was previously regarded as having moral bearing and rectitude. Denying such rectitude became central for Ji Kang, who claimed that music was incapable of possessing human emotion, releasing it from the chains of Confucian ritualism. His investigation into the name and reality of musical expression gave music an “aesthetic turn” lacking in Qin and early Han thought, and by making use of concepts such as natural harmony and spontaneity, Ji Kang was able to turn away from the negative aesthetics of earlier thinkers such as He Yan and Wang Bi to one cherishing the naturalism espoused by Zhuangzi.     

“以道制欲,乐而不乱”——试论荀子的音乐教育思想

荀子是战国末期的儒学大师,杰出的思想家,对中国古代音乐美学的发展有重要贡献。荀子的音乐教育思想集中反映在《荀子.乐论》中。他认为人需要音乐,肯定了音乐在沟通人们情感以及在人性教化中的巨大作用,具有＂中和之美＂。要使其成为教育人的手段和工具,防止音乐陷入邪乱,就必须使其符合道德礼义的要求。本文以荀子＂以道制欲,则乐而不乱＂的礼乐哲学思想为基点,全面阐述了荀子礼乐教育思想的内容、本质和作用以及其对当代音乐发展的启示。     

The Creative Brain/The Creative Mind

In the past few decades, neuroscience research has greatly expanded our understanding of how the human brain functions. In particular, we have begun to explore the basis of emotions, intelligence, and creativity. These brain functions also have been applied to various aspects of behavior, thought, and experience. We have also begun to develop an understanding of how the brain and mind work during aesthetic and religious experiences. Studies on these topics have included neuropsychological tests, physiological measures, and brain imaging. These different techniques have enabled us to open up a window into the brain. It is by understanding the functioning of the creative brain that we begin to understand the concept of the creative mind. It is through the use of emotions and other higher cognitive functions that the brain and mind can create ideas, music, literature, and ultimately our entire repertoire of behaviors. How these different creative abilities are derived can also be traced to various parts of the brain and how they function. Modern neuroscience allows us to begin to understand the creative aspect of the brain and mind and perhaps can take us one step further toward understanding the most profound types of aesthetic and religious experiences.     

A field is to play. Enacting mental images of the soundscape

The article mainly focuses on the presentation of “A field is to play”, a collaborative and interactive installation dedicated to the recording and the reenacting of the relationship between the inhabitants of Mazama, WA – a small community in the USA – and their sonic environment. Through multimedia local interactions, enaction and emplacement, the project aimed to give expression to the many, individual and socially constructed, mental images of the local soundscape. A physical, interactive audio installation presented excerpts from individual interviews, emplacing and activating such mental representations, to merge them back into the environment. The artistic intervention was conceived as a localised process, acting through an engagement with publics. The soundscape itself, and its mental representations, were manipulated both as relational media, and subject matter. The presentation is preceded by three sections that introduce the theoretical context at the origin of the installation starting from urban theory in architecture, to the role of public art up to the discussion around the topic of soundscape, in a path from the most general issues to those more related to the specific character of the installation. The conclusion pulls together the theoretical and the applied sections and offers some response to the questions raised in the introduction. Through a theoretical engagement with the installation, it asks the reader to rethink the relationship between sound, memory and mental images.