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IPLUSO 20270

Contemporary Aesthetics

Illustration and Drawing
  • ApresentaçãoPresentation
    With a focus on the relationship between practice and theory in the field of contemporary aesthetics, this curricular unit will rely on mainstream and experimental tendencies in visual art, the audio-visual and the digital, to articulate changes that have occurred in the last 50 to 60 years. The term “contemporary aesthetics" usually refers to the visual arts produced from the prolific 1960s until today. If the 1960s represent the dissolution of the last barriers that determined the presence of artistic movements, we must ask whether contemporary aesthetics marks precisely the simultaneous, and apparently unlimited, multiplication of ways of making and seeing. What is proposed is that we approach the label “contemporary aesthetics” beyond its common usage, to acquire tools that will enable us to think about and discern this territory where, apparently, manifold artistic forms and strategies coexist.
  • ProgramaProgramme
    1.  Aesthesis - Perception, sensation, aesthetic reception  - Aesthetics as the ‘capacity to be impressed’ (the aesthetic emotion) 2. Aesthetics as the ‘capacity to impress’ (the aesthetic decision) - Synaesthesia and Disinterested Attention - seeing and looking, touching and despising, confronting and deceiving, wanting and avoiding: the manoeuvres of aesthetic feeling - The science of the sensible in the work of Alexander Baumgarten  - Critique of the Faculty of Judgement - Introduction to Kant's philosophical work. - Aesthetic Criteria: Beauty / Sublime / Horror - Catharsis - Between Greek theatre and video games 2. Issues in Contemporary Aesthetics - The concept of Aura in Walter Benjamin; - Edward W. Said's Orientalism - Gender Trouble -Judith Butler - Zygmunt Bauman's Liquid Modernity - The Aesthetics of the Smooth and the Crisis in Narration in Byung-Chul HAN  Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
  • ObjectivosObjectives
    The aim of this UC is to introduce students to a range of different ideas, concepts and debates from and around the field of contemporary aesthetics. Work is sustained by an exploration of key concepts and realities, in their relationship with artistic practice, production and consumption. This methodology emerges through a series of thematic study sessions focusing on the relationship between aesthetic thinking, artistic production and the commodification of art. Students are encouraged to develop independent and critical thinking in relation to specific areas, and to locate and articulate this theoretical work in and with wider settings and contexts. Students should engage in ways of thinking about the nature of contemporary aesthetics beyond the term’s common use. What is proposed is the questioning of contemporary aesthetics, conceptually as well as phenomenologically, to bestow tools that will enable students to think about this intricate and sometimes hard to decipher field.
  • BibliografiaBibliography
    . Badiou. A. Fifteen Theses on Contemporary Art in http://www.lacan.com/frameXXIII7.htm . Benjamin, W. (2015) Illuminations. Bodley Head. . Coleman, E. B. (2018). Cross-Cultural Aesthetics. In H. Callan (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Anthropology: Anthropology Beyond Text (Vol. 3, pp. 1267-1274). Wiley-Blackwell. . Doane, M. (2007) Indexicality: Trace and Sign in differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 18(1): 1–6. . Fanon, F (1967) Black Skin, White Masks. Grove. . Gilles, D. (2013) Cinema I - The Movement Image. Bloomsbury Revelations. . Rancière, J. (2013) The Politics of Aesthetics. Bloomsbury Academic. . Robson, J. and Meskin, A. (2016)  Video Games as Self-Involving Interactive Fictions in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 74(2): 165–177 . Richardson, J.; Gorbman, C.;Vernallis, C. (eds.) (2013) The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics. Oxford Handbooks. . Said, E. (2003) Orientalism. Penguim Books    
  • MetodologiaMethodology
    TP classes tend to be expository (with a strong visual emphasis), open to discussion and problematisation of the key concepts and main figures in the syllabus. Assessment is continuous, mid-term and without a final exam: the mid-term assessment includes active participation in classes (30%), two written reports (30%), a visual essay (20%) and the oral presentation of a theoretical paper (20%) on a topic included in the syllabus. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
  • LínguaLanguage
    Português
  • TipoType
    Semestral
  • ECTS
    5
  • NaturezaNature
    Mandatory
  • EstágioInternship
    Não