O objetivo do texto é propor uma interpretação do conceito de sublime na Teoria estética de Theodor Adorno, partindo do confronto com leituras significativas de outros comentadores, de modo a fornecer uma concepção que associe o movimento de transcendência e alteridade da forma estética à dinâmica histórico-processual das obras. The objective of this paper is to propose an interpretation of the concept of sublime in the Aesthetic Theory of Theodor Adorno, starting with the confrontation with meaningful readings of other commentators, (...) in order to provide a conception that links the movement of transcendence and otherness of the aesthetic form to the process-historical dynamics of the works. (shrink)

This paper discusses the phenomena of performativity and aestheticization and their implications for education. The forces of performativity pose a threat to music and the other arts, even though some advocators try to justify music education by appealing to their alleged performative results. At first sight, aestheticization seems to accord much better with music education but closer analysis of this many‐sided phenomenon also yields negative points: superficiality often reigns, overfeeding leads to anaesthesia, and the aesthetic itself is often controlled by (...) economic performativity. Even so, it is argued, the prospects of music education may not be as sombre as postmodern philosophy suggests. (shrink)

Die Frage nach der Quelle von Freiheit ist, angesichts einer wesentlich durch neoliberalistische Lebens- und Wirtschaftsmodelle ausgelösten planetarischen Krise, zu einer Herausforderung der vorwiegend individualistischen Grundlage pädagogischer Theorie geworden. Wir stellen dieser unter dem Titel der „kulturellen Resilienz“ einen relational-transformatorischen bildungstheoretischen Ansatz gegenüber, in dessen Zentrum eine relationale Freiheitstheorie steht. Im Rahmen einer agentiell-realistischen (Barad 2012) Reinterpretation soziologischer Resilienztheorie (Brown 2015) verorten wir Freiheit im Spannungsfeld aufeinander bezogener Momente der Rootedness als Praxis eines sinnlich-leiblichen und zugleich kritisch-ästhetischen Gewahrwerdens von Entanglement (...) (versus desengagierte Rationalität), Resourcefulness als diffraktionale (versus reflexive) umgestaltende Praxis der Hervorbringung von Welt, sowie „Resistance“ als performative und strukturbildende intra-aktionale, d.h. aus Relationierungen (versus abstrahierende Distanz) hervorgehende Praxis der Kritik. „Freiheit“ wird demnach bildungstheoretisch wie pädagogisch nicht durch eine Position außerhalb von Bindungen verwirklicht, sondern durch die Möglichkeit, bindende Strukturen innerhalb materieller Kollektive und kultureller Apparate neu zu konfigurieren. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the origins of banality and the reasons why some phenomena appear banal to us. I discuss the issue by analysing three interrelated areas of aesthetic investigation: artworks, everyday objects, and banal things. By identifying the source of banality, my goal is to understand what makes banal things different from other kinds of things. I consider the following questions: 1) when, why, and how does an object become banal?; 2) what happens when something becomes banal?; 3) (...) are banal things aesthetically appealing? Drawing on Wolfgang Welsch’s notion of anesthetization and Walter Benjamin’s account of aura, I argue that banality consists in the absence of both an ontological and an axiological character in objects, which makes them appear trivial or insignificant to us. I conclude by showing that although art, everydayness, and banality represent different aesthetic dimensions, objects constantly move from one of these dimensions to the other. (shrink)

This short paper comments on Lukáš Makky’s article What Makes Things Banal. The argument is divided into two sections. The first section reconstructs Makky’s understanding of banality, which he develops based on aesthetic theories by Wolfgang Welsch and Walter Benjamin. The second and more critical section examines the validity of the arguments Makky uses for his definition of banality. Although this commentary attaches great value to Makky’s insightful analysis of the term banality and agrees with identifying it as a historical (...) and processual concept, drawing on writings by M. Heidegger and J. Derrida it eventually proposes a different understanding of the relationship between the arts and banal things and underlines the importance of banality for the creation and perception of the arts. (shrink)

With reference to a standard work on embodied cognition – The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience by Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson und Eleanor Rosch – in this article I theorize art reception that connects reflexive processes with concrete perceptual experiences as embodied art reflection. Analogously to Varela et al’s citation of meditation practice as a transformation of immediate experience into an open, embodied reflection, one can also understand focussed awareness of experience in reflected, perceptually-oriented reception of art as (...) an open, embodied mode of access. The particular educational potential of art as a medium and object of knowledge and cognition lies moreover above all in its physical power of making-present, which exercises its particular effect in the concrete experience of the artwork. Against the background of a phenomenological perspective on learning, it is especially disruptive moments which are able to form perception and thought anew. For a pedagogical context above all, the schooling of perception and attention practised in art has particular relevance in relation to lived experience, opening new horizons. To show the potential of embodied art reflection through an example from the field of object art, my theoretical discussion opens out into a specific consideration of an artwork. (shrink)

The article discusses installation art and its potential contribution to a transdisciplinary research practice, in which not only artistic, but also aesthetic theoretical approaches could play a central role. However, as the article shows, this firstly requires a change in perspective concerning the way we approach art. Secondly, it entails changes to a common understanding of aesthetic theory and, thereby, philosophy. A term of central significance in this context is the notion of aisthesis. The article will illustrate these thoughts through (...) the examples of Bruce Nauman, Ilya Kabakov, and Arnold Berleant. (shrink)