Aesthetics of the past and the future: Human life within changing environments

Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksChapterpeer-review

Authors

This chapter analyses the aesthetics of technological life-worlds in science-fiction in analogy to historical Asian landscape paintings. Science-fiction movies and landscape painting would appear to have very little in common. There is nevertheless a connection between the aesthetics of landscape painting and imagining future technology: both stage environments in their own way. They are environments in which the human being seldom occupies a central position. Both also play with the image of the human being and her bodiliness. From an aesthetic perspective, the main difference between the old landscape paintings and the recent science-fiction-scapes is the position of human life within them. Traditional Asian landscape paintings do not center on the human figure. Human life is embedded within the larger scope of the mesocosmos. In this regard, landscape painting is closer to post-anthropocene criticism of the humanistic subject than is contemporary popular culture. A decentralized and yet embedded and entangled human existence is in certain regards a very modern image. It is compatible with philosophical positions in critical posthumanism (Rosi Braidotti) and ecological theories (Luciana Parisi and Erich Hörl). The environments depicted in science-fiction on the other hand are dominated by human and technological agency. Human life is central to these images. And, as with the landscape paintings, the beholder is affected in a bodily way - but differently. While the paintings evoke a bodily knowledge and situatedness that dates back to early evolutionary stages of human life and culture, science fiction evokes pain and suffering. The recurrent loss of the body seems to be directly linked to a future that has been lost to accelerated technological development. The chapter explores the aesthetic characteristics of utopian life-worlds and their implications for embodied cognition and human situatedness.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAesthetics in Dialogue : Applying Philosophy of Art in a Global World
EditorsZoltán Somhegyi, Max Ryynänen
Number of pages14
PublisherPeter Lang Verlag
Publication date06.07.2020
Pages237-250
ISBN (print)978-3-631-79218-6
ISBN (electronic)978-3-631-81596-0, 978-3-631-81595-3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 06.07.2020

    Research areas

  • Aesthetics of technology, Anthropocene, Embodiment, Landscape painting, Posthumanism, Science-fiction
  • Cultural studies
  • Philosophy

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Testing for Economies of Scope in European Railways
  2. Do environmental preferences in wealthy nations persist in times of crisis?
  3. Digitisation and Sovereignty in Humanitarian Space
  4. Land use modulates resistance of grasslands against future climate and inter-annual climate variability in a large field experiment
  5. Glen Mills Schools
  6. Schools and their ‚culture of consumption‘: a context for consumer learning
  7. Gespenstergespräche
  8. Magnesium alloys as implant materials-Principles of property design for Mg-RE alloys
  9. Niche segregation in microhabitat use of three sympatric Cyrtodactylus in the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Central Vietnam
  10. Heidegger reads Goethe. A polyphonic "Dialogue" (approx. 1910 to 1976)
  11. Assuring a safe, secure and sustainable
  12. Long-Term Strategies for Tackling Micropollutants
  13. Robert Walser lieben
  14. Determinants of farm size and stocking rate in Namibian commercial cattle farming
  15. Impactos do engajamento das empresas com seus stakeholders
  16. Strategisches Management in KMU
  17. Pabst, Peter
  18. Potent executives
  19. Local and landscape level variables influence butterfly diversity in critically endangered South African renosterveld
  20. PPC Task Plan Sourcing - Synchronization of Procurement and Production. A Model-based Observation
  21. Executive Prerogatives in the Legislative Process and Democratic Stability
  22. Normal Development
  23. A Reference Model for Data-driven Business Model Innovation Initiatives in Incumbent Firms
  24. Photodegradation of the UV filter ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate under ultraviolet light
  25. Blended learning
  26. § 25 Klärgas
  27. Publikationsstrategien
  28. Role of perceived importance in intergroup contact
  29. § 264d HGB
  30. Versteigern statt Verschenken!
  31. The Effects of Altruism and Social Background in an Online-Based, Pay-What-You-Want Situation
  32. Peopling Europe through Data Practices