Class Research Seminar: Aesthetics

The emergence of photography contributed decisively to intensify the crisis of aesthetic categories. New productivities and discursive formations have emerged alongside new means of production, circulation, and organization of objects. These developments motivate a re-reading of aesthetics as a methodology for apprehending the relationship between things. This Curricular Unit aims to explore this inquiry, providing theoretical knowledge and analytical tools for understanding contemporary issues in aesthetics. It approaches aesthetics as an expanded field of ontological inquiry, focusing on the nature of technical gestures and their expression in visual language.

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Aesthetic Categories 1. The magical, the universalizable, and the possible. 2. Excess and the abject. 3. Earth as an aesthetic category.   Aesthetic Technologies 1. Technical thinking and aesthetic thinking. 2. Reproducibility and techno-aesthetics. 3. The gesture and the remainder.   Aesthetic Ontologies 1. Aesthetics as a way of knowing: on the nature of gesture. 2. Aesthetics as a way of conceiving: on tension and potential energy in the formation of form. 3. The constellar effect and the kaleidoscopic experience of the world

Seminars function in a tutorial approach, with readings, debates and field trips, hence is essential the attendance and participation of students. The progression of summaries and recommended readings for each session should be monitored via Moodle, elements that will be previously uploaded to this platform.

Bragança de Miranda, J. (2023). Constelações: Ensaios sobre cultura e técnica na contemporaneidade. Lisboa: Documenta. Bataille, G. 2015. O Nascimento da Arte, apres. e trad. por Aníbal Fernandes, Lisboa: Sistema Solar. Benjamin, W. 1992. A Obra de Arte na Era da sua Reprodutibilidade Técnica, In Sobre Arte, Técnica, Linguagem e Política. Trad. M. Moita, pp. 71-113. Lisboa: Relógio D’Água. ART/529-BC Benjamin, W. (2018). O contador de histórias: reflexões sobre a obra de Nikolai Leskov. In J. Barrento (Ed. & Trans.), Linguagem, Tradução, Literatura (pp. 139-166). Autêntica Editora. Kristeva, J., 1982. ‘Approaching abjection’, Powers of Horror, trans. L.S. Roudiez, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 1–31. Otte, G., & Volpe, M. L. (2000). Um olhar constelar sobre o pensamento de Walter Benjamin. Fragmentos, 18, 35-47. Simondon, G. (2012). On techno-aesthetics. Parrhesia, 14, 1-8.