Ante el renovado interés por la estética y el destacado retorno de la belleza en la teoría del arte de las últimas décadas, el propósito de este artículo es analizar y cuestionar algunas de las razones que explicarían su exilio del arte contemporáneo, en concreto las que apuntan a la dimensión estética como alienadora de la acción política. Mi primer objetivo es pues mostrar que la reconsideración de la naturaleza de lo estético y el reconocimiento de la pluralidad de cualidades (...) estéticas evita esa objeción al tiempo que impide calificar al arte contemporáneo de anti-estético. Por otra parte, apelando a las llamadas “bellezas terribles” me centraré en defender que los argumentos que limitan la opción de la belleza en el arte actual tampoco lograrían mostrar por completo el carácter anti-político de esta cualidad estética, por lo que merecería dejar de considerarse tan restringida. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is the concept of originality as it relates to the concept of genesis developed by Deleuze in his early essay ‘The Idea of Genesis in Kant's Esthetics’. Using the exhibition of Tim Bennett's as a starting point, it brings together two accounts of originality, the first postmodern one represented by Rosalind Krauss's ‘The Originality of the Avant-garde’ and the second genetic kind found in Deleuze's aforementioned essay, to show how originality and genesis might correspond, paying (...) close attention to the transcendental innovations of Kant's aesthetic tradition to which both concepts belong. (shrink)

Through established modern theories of design thinking, the internalization of environmental design through studio education is fundamentally a construct of ego-centrism. This fact subsequently inhibits an intersubjective and discursive professional ethic. Alternatively, a pedagogy set within a construct of practical discourse could ground an ethical construction of practice which more accurately reflects the realities of intersubjectivity found in human learning, in the best possibilities of studio education, and in the discursive processes fundamental to environmental design in society.

This essay identifies two different methodological strategies used by the proponents of anarchism. In what is termed the "ontological" approach, the rationale for anarchism depends on a particular representation of human nature. That characterization of "being" determines the relation between the individual and the structures of social life. In the alternative approach, the epistemological status of "representation" is challenged, leaving human subjects without stable identities. Without the possibility of stable human representations, the foundations underlying the exercise of institutional power can (...) be challenged. This epistemological discussion is traced from Max Stirner to the twentieth-century movement known as poststructuralism. (shrink)

The emergence of postmodernism has stimulateddiscourse on the potential for using reason tocreate a just society. The discourse hascaused confusion and dissension in the field ofeducational administration as scholars seek tofind a means to blend concepts inherent in themodern and postmodern. The works of JürgenHabermas provide a means of dealing with thisdilemma and have some specific applications tothe practice of educational administration.

This work is a study of Jane Bowles's madness as revealed through several of her literary works and her life story. On a parallel plane, it is an epistemological exploration of the points of intersection between humanistic psychoanalysis and deconstructive literary criticism. Here we consider the schizoid traits in Two Serious Ladies (1943) and in “Camp Cataract” (1949), using the theories developed in this area by the psychiatrist R. D. Laing (1927–1989).

My research into Virtual Reality technology and its central property of immersion has indicated that immersion in Virtual Reality (VR) electronic systems is a significant key to the understanding of contemporary culture as well as considerable aspects of previous culture as detected in the histories of philosophy and the visual arts. The fundamental change in aesthetic perception engendered by immersion, a perception which is connected to the ideal of total-immersion in virtual space, identifies certain shifts in ontology which are relevant (...) to a better understanding of the human being. This understanding was achieved through a broad inquiry into the histories of Virtual Reality, philosophy, and the visual arts and has lead to the formulation of an aesthetic theory of immersive consciousness indicative of immersive culture. The primary subject of this discourse is immersion then: an experience which will be identified within the dissertation as the indispensable characteristic of Virtual Reality. The understanding of immersion arrived at here will be used to fashion a synchronous theory of art particularly informed by encounters and concepts of immersion into virtuality. To sufficiently address this subject in a scholarly fashion, I have researched, found and accumulated aesthetic and philosophic examples of immersive tendencies, as found within the histories of art and philosophy, which subsequently contributed towards the articulation of what I have come to call immersive consciousness. As a result of formulating such an immersive consciousness, a good deal of the basis for the questioning of the Western ontological tradition has been found in the Western tradition itself when we look with new eyes and ask new uncertain questions. Moreover, this immersive consciousness will be used to propose some abstract questions encircling today's electronic-based culture. Through the structuring of the argument within the thesis - and overtly within the conclusion - I have articulated a non-teleological creative strategy which provides the basis for an unconstraining integration of noologies (ways of semblancing the thinking process). This strategy provides a means of exemplifying - and for honoring - various methods of thinking. This structuring strategy is consistent with the 'hacker ethic' as defined by Steven Levy, as a demand that access to computers - and anything which might teach us something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total. To follow this strategy, this dissertation has set out to understand how topical conceptions of virtual immersion connect to pre-existing systems of thought as revealed in art as they have extended out of antecedent ontological self-understandings, historical human self-understandings which have evidenced themselves in the elaboration of technological objectives. To do this I have forged a certain rhizomatic paternity/maternity for Virtual Reality within this dissertation by joining choice immersive examples of simulacra technology into mental connections with the relevant examples culled from the histories of art, architecture, information-technology, sex, myth, space, consciousness and philosophy. (shrink)

Kolb discusses postmodern architectural styles and theories within the context of philosophical ideas about modernism and postmodernism. He focuses on what it means to dwell in a world and within a history and to act from or against a tradition.