Pub Date : 2018-11-06DOI: 10.7146/NJA.V27I55-56.110729
Jack Lynch
This article examines three films by the Swedish director Ruben Östlund: Play (2011), Force Majeure (2014), and The Square (2017). It describes the role of mobile phones in the films, both on the level of content and in terms of aesthetics. Within the films, the failure of the phone to connect the protagonists to significant others is seen as symbolic of an alienation that leads them to points of crisis. Here, the mobile phone works as a device in two ways. First, as a significant communication technology, and second, as a plot contrivance to advance the dramatic conflict. Critically, the mobile phone opens an uncertain space where subjectivity becomes increasingly insecure, precisely as it becomes fundamentally intertwined with it. There is a cinematic tradition of mobilizing this ambiguity to which this process can be connected. Further, the form of these works is considered in relation to the notion of traumatic repetition, and how this expands into the wider contemporary image-culture and the key influence of YouTube within this. Here, the films are considered in relation to the changing dynamic of the public sphere in the light of the mobile recording capabilities, that have come to shape an emergent cinematic aesthetic evident in these films.
{"title":"“PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE”: THE MEDIA ECOLOGY OF RUBEN ÖSTLUND’S PLAY, FORCE MAJEURE, AND THE SQUARE","authors":"Jack Lynch","doi":"10.7146/NJA.V27I55-56.110729","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/NJA.V27I55-56.110729","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000This article examines three films by the Swedish director Ruben Östlund: Play (2011), Force Majeure (2014), and The Square (2017). It describes the role of mobile phones in the films, both on the level of content and in terms of aesthetics. Within the films, the failure of the phone to connect the protagonists to significant others is seen as symbolic of an alienation that leads them to points of crisis. Here, the mobile phone works as a device in two ways. First, as a significant communication technology, and second, as a plot contrivance to advance the dramatic conflict. Critically, the mobile phone opens an uncertain space where subjectivity becomes increasingly insecure, precisely as it becomes fundamentally intertwined with it. There is a cinematic tradition of mobilizing this ambiguity to which this process can be connected. Further, the form of these works is considered in relation to the notion of traumatic repetition, and how this expands into the wider contemporary image-culture and the key influence of YouTube within this. Here, the films are considered in relation to the changing dynamic of the public sphere in the light of the mobile recording capabilities, that have come to shape an emergent cinematic aesthetic evident in these films. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":38858,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Aesthetics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45906386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-06DOI: 10.7146/nja.v27i55-56.110720
Georges Didi-Huberman
The article presents some notes for an anthropology of the gestures of uprising [soulèvement]. It argues that, just as sounds (screams, words, slogans) always come out of the mouth of the demonstra- tors, images of all kinds are also brandished at the end of their arms. Based on this the article raises the question of the very notion of a desire for uprising.
{"title":"CONFLICTS OF GESTURES, CONFLICTS OF IMAGES","authors":"Georges Didi-Huberman","doi":"10.7146/nja.v27i55-56.110720","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/nja.v27i55-56.110720","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000The article presents some notes for an anthropology of the gestures of uprising [soulèvement]. It argues that, just as sounds (screams, words, slogans) always come out of the mouth of the demonstra- tors, images of all kinds are also brandished at the end of their arms. Based on this the article raises the question of the very notion of a desire for uprising. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":38858,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Aesthetics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46914286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-06DOI: 10.7146/nja.v27i55-56.110722
Roger Edholm
Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure (2014) centres around a Swedish family vacationing at a ski resort in the Alps. The film depicts how the family breaks down after the father leaves his wife and children behind while fleeing from a possible avalanche. This breakdown is reflected in the film’s use of framing. In the opening scenes, the viewer is presented with a series of family portraits. After the averted disaster, the family is no longer shown as a coherent whole. Framing in Force Majeure is thus as a technical as well as a thematic matter related to the film’s exploration of the nuclear family. Framing is also connected to the comedic characterization of the family that the film depicts. Rather than identifying with them, the viewer is invited to critically reflect upon their self-image and their actions. The focus of this essay is therefore the concept of framing in connection with the film’s theme of family and certain comedic conventions. Force Majeure is symmetrically structured and the narrative progression adheres to a traditional plot-pattern moving from the disruption of order to the restoration of order. Yet, the film also flaunts its structure and makes the viewer aware of the clichés of conventional storytelling as these clichés and conventions are reproduced in the lives of the main characters.
{"title":"FAMILY FRAMING AND THE COMEDY OF CONVENTIONS IN RUBEN ÖSTLUND’S FORCE MAJEURE","authors":"Roger Edholm","doi":"10.7146/nja.v27i55-56.110722","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/nja.v27i55-56.110722","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure (2014) centres around a Swedish family vacationing at a ski resort in the Alps. The film depicts how the family breaks down after the father leaves his wife and children behind while fleeing from a possible avalanche. This breakdown is reflected in the film’s use of framing. In the opening scenes, the viewer is presented with a series of family portraits. After the averted disaster, the family is no longer shown as a coherent whole. Framing in Force Majeure is thus as a technical as well as a thematic matter related to the film’s exploration of the nuclear family. Framing is also connected to the comedic characterization of the family that the film depicts. Rather than identifying with them, the viewer is invited to critically reflect upon their self-image and their actions. The focus of this essay is therefore the concept of framing in connection with the film’s theme of family and certain comedic conventions. Force Majeure is symmetrically structured and the narrative progression adheres to a traditional plot-pattern moving from the disruption of order to the restoration of order. Yet, the film also flaunts its structure and makes the viewer aware of the clichés of conventional storytelling as these clichés and conventions are reproduced in the lives of the main characters. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":38858,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Aesthetics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71091287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-12DOI: 10.7146/NJA.V26I54.103079
Anne Elisabeth Sejten
David Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste” (1757)—which represents a major step towards clarifying eighteenth-century philosophy’s dawning aesthetics in terms of taste—also relates closely to literal, physical taste. From the analogy between gustatory and critical taste, Hume, apt at judging works of art, puts together a contradictory argument of subjectivism (taste is individual and varies from person to person) and the normativity of common sense (the test of time shows that some works of art are better than others). However, a careful reading of the text unveils a way of appealing to art criticism as a vital component in edifying a philosophically more solid standard of taste. Hume’s emphatic references to a requisite “delicacy” complicate the picture, for it is not clear what this delicacy is, but a close inspection of how Hume frames the criterion of delicacy by means of “practice” and the absence of “prejudice” might perhaps challenge us to address issues of contemporary art.
{"title":"From Hume's \"Delicacy\" to Contemporary Art","authors":"Anne Elisabeth Sejten","doi":"10.7146/NJA.V26I54.103079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/NJA.V26I54.103079","url":null,"abstract":"David Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste” (1757)—which represents a major step towards clarifying eighteenth-century philosophy’s dawning aesthetics in terms of taste—also relates closely to literal, physical taste. From the analogy between gustatory and critical taste, Hume, apt at judging works of art, puts together a contradictory argument of subjectivism (taste is individual and varies from person to person) and the normativity of common sense (the test of time shows that some works of art are better than others). However, a careful reading of the text unveils a way of appealing to art criticism as a vital component in edifying a philosophically more solid standard of taste. Hume’s emphatic references to a requisite “delicacy” complicate the picture, for it is not clear what this delicacy is, but a close inspection of how Hume frames the criterion of delicacy by means of “practice” and the absence of “prejudice” might perhaps challenge us to address issues of contemporary art.","PeriodicalId":38858,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Aesthetics","volume":"26 1","pages":"35-46"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49203450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-12DOI: 10.7146/NJA.V26I54.103078
C. Korsmeyer
The sense of taste has served as a governing metaphor for aesthetic discernment for several centuries, and recent philosophical perspectives on this history have invited literal, gustatory taste into aesthetic relevance. This paper summarizes the disposition of taste in aesthetics by means of three stories, the most recent of which considers food in terms of aesthetics and its employment in works of art. I conclude with some reflections on the odd position that taste has achieved in the postmodern art world, and I make a case for the often unnoticed role that bodily senses have in the apprehension of art.
{"title":"TASTE AND OTHER SENSES: RECONSIDERING THE FOUNDATIONS OF AESTHETICS","authors":"C. Korsmeyer","doi":"10.7146/NJA.V26I54.103078","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/NJA.V26I54.103078","url":null,"abstract":"The sense of taste has served as a governing metaphor for aesthetic discernment for several centuries, and recent philosophical perspectives on this history have invited literal, gustatory taste into aesthetic relevance. This paper summarizes the disposition of taste in aesthetics by means of three stories, the most recent of which considers food in terms of aesthetics and its employment in works of art. I conclude with some reflections on the odd position that taste has achieved in the postmodern art world, and I make a case for the often unnoticed role that bodily senses have in the apprehension of art.","PeriodicalId":38858,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Aesthetics","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42067681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-12DOI: 10.7146/nja.v26i54.103084
Stefán Snævarr
When Richard Shusterman burst on the academic scene some decades ago he quickly became the golden boy of aesthetics. Now in his late sixties he is hardly a boy anymore, but possibly a golden oldie. Nevertheless, he is still prone to boyish pranks as can be seen in parts of his new book, The Adventures of the Man in Gold. Paths between Art and Life.
{"title":"REVIEW: RICHARD SHUSTERMAN, THE ADVENTURES OF THE MAN IN GOLD. PATHS BETWEEN ART AND LIFE","authors":"Stefán Snævarr","doi":"10.7146/nja.v26i54.103084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/nja.v26i54.103084","url":null,"abstract":"When Richard Shusterman burst on the academic scene some decades ago he quickly became the golden boy of aesthetics. Now in his late sixties he is hardly a boy anymore, but possibly a golden oldie. Nevertheless, he is still prone to boyish pranks as can be seen in parts of his new book, The Adventures of the Man in Gold. Paths between Art and Life.","PeriodicalId":38858,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Aesthetics","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71091277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-12DOI: 10.7146/nja.v26i54.103082
C. Talon-Hugon
At the beginning of modern times, taste was seen as a sort of sense of sociability, indistinctly moral and aesthetic. Why, during the eighteenth century did it become exclusively the sense of beauty? To understand this change, this article maintains that we must consider the great revolution, which affected the idea of beauty between the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, that is to say the end of the metaphysical conception of beauty. We must analyse the phenomenon of beauty aestheticisation produced by the modern subjectivist, psychological and empirical perspective. The aestheticisation of taste is one of the consequences of the underground ontological revolution, which led to a transformation of the transcendental essences in human values. When beauty is nothing more than beauty, and does not exist without a sensitive experience, one needs a sensitive faculty which enables one to grasp beauty, or more precisely, which gives birth to beauty, seeing beauty as no longer having a proper ontological consistency.
{"title":"THE AESTHETICISATION OF TASTE, A CONSEQUENCE OF THE “AESTHETICISATION” OF BEAUTY","authors":"C. Talon-Hugon","doi":"10.7146/nja.v26i54.103082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/nja.v26i54.103082","url":null,"abstract":"At the beginning of modern times, taste was seen as a sort of sense of sociability, indistinctly moral and aesthetic. Why, during the eighteenth century did it become exclusively the sense of beauty? To understand this change, this article maintains that we must consider the great revolution, which affected the idea of beauty between the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, that is to say the end of the metaphysical conception of beauty. We must analyse the phenomenon of beauty aestheticisation produced by the modern subjectivist, psychological and empirical perspective. The aestheticisation of taste is one of the consequences of the underground ontological revolution, which led to a transformation of the transcendental essences in human values. When beauty is nothing more than beauty, and does not exist without a sensitive experience, one needs a sensitive faculty which enables one to grasp beauty, or more precisely, which gives birth to beauty, seeing beauty as no longer having a proper ontological consistency.","PeriodicalId":38858,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Aesthetics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47208614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-12DOI: 10.7146/nja.v26i54.103081
Esther Oluffa Pedersen
The article follows Kant’s different views on aesthetics ranging from the pre-critical period to the Critique of the Power of Judgement. It argues that John Zammito’s psychological explanation of why Kant in the third Critique developed an argument for the transcendental justification of judgements of taste is unconvincing. As an alternative, the article shows how Kant in his published pre-critical discussions of aesthetics was relying upon empiricist sources while he in private comments turned to consider the culture critique of Rousseau. Kant’s preoccupation with questions of culture critique, it is argued, was an important reason to enlarge the doctrines of transcendental philosophy with a third Critique containing a transcendental aesthetics of beauty. Additionally, it is pointed out an interesting similarity throughout the development of Kant’s philosophy. In 1765 and in the third Critique Kant was concerned to keep philosophy and judgements of taste apart from science
{"title":"The Origins of the Transcendental Justification of Taste: Kant's Several Views on the Status of Beauty","authors":"Esther Oluffa Pedersen","doi":"10.7146/nja.v26i54.103081","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/nja.v26i54.103081","url":null,"abstract":"The article follows Kant’s different views on aesthetics ranging from the pre-critical period to the Critique of the Power of Judgement. It argues that John Zammito’s psychological explanation of why Kant in the third Critique developed an argument for the transcendental justification of judgements of taste is unconvincing. As an alternative, the article shows how Kant in his published pre-critical discussions of aesthetics was relying upon empiricist sources while he in private comments turned to consider the culture critique of Rousseau. Kant’s preoccupation with questions of culture critique, it is argued, was an important reason to enlarge the doctrines of transcendental philosophy with a third Critique containing a transcendental aesthetics of beauty. Additionally, it is pointed out an interesting similarity throughout the development of Kant’s philosophy. In 1765 and in the third Critique Kant was concerned to keep philosophy and judgements of taste apart from science","PeriodicalId":38858,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Aesthetics","volume":"26 1","pages":"47-62"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47093712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-12DOI: 10.7146/nja.v26i54.103083
Morten Kyndrup
The article argues that although all scholars within aesthetics basically know and recognize it, there is a tendency in many of its traditions to forget or to underestimate the importance of the aesthetic judgment. With Thierry de Duve’s short paper “Why Kant got it Right” as its point of departure, this importance is discussed. Not only its importance in aesthetic relations and to aesthetics as a discipline, but also in a broader sense, through the contribution to the overall social cohesion of society, offered by aesthetic judgments. All judgments are pronounced as-if a shared scale of aesthetic preferences did exist (which it does not). Judgments are addressed to communities, to the notion of a joint “we”, and thus they do participate in the creation and the maintenance of the social as such. Also professional aesthetic critique, including art critique, should be aware of that, since even historically achieved differentiations and divisions of labour may be lost again if not being developed and kept up to date.
{"title":"AESTHETICS AND JUDGMENT: “WHY KANT GOT IT RIGHT”","authors":"Morten Kyndrup","doi":"10.7146/nja.v26i54.103083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/nja.v26i54.103083","url":null,"abstract":"The article argues that although all scholars within aesthetics basically know and recognize it, there is a tendency in many of its traditions to forget or to underestimate the importance of the aesthetic judgment. With Thierry de Duve’s short paper “Why Kant got it Right” as its point of departure, this importance is discussed. Not only its importance in aesthetic relations and to aesthetics as a discipline, but also in a broader sense, through the contribution to the overall social cohesion of society, offered by aesthetic judgments. All judgments are pronounced as-if a shared scale of aesthetic preferences did exist (which it does not). Judgments are addressed to communities, to the notion of a joint “we”, and thus they do participate in the creation and the maintenance of the social as such. Also professional aesthetic critique, including art critique, should be aware of that, since even historically achieved differentiations and divisions of labour may be lost again if not being developed and kept up to date.","PeriodicalId":38858,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Aesthetics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48403760","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-12DOI: 10.7146/NJA.V26I54.103077
J. Rebentisch
The essay discusses the logic of distinction under the sign of the contemporary culture of difference and proposes a discussion of the relationship between taste and contemporary art. The recent trend toward greater individualization might have rendered social codes more permeable. But this state of affairs is neither the opposite of the standardization nor does it imply that the social logic of distinction has been suspended. It has merely undergone further differentiation, but without abolishing the signifiers of status. On the one hand art as a commodity partakes in the respective developments, on the other, certain strands in contemporary art can also be read as opposing the subject of aesthetic experience to the subject of consumerist taste.
{"title":"DISTINCTION AND DIFFERENCE: REVISITING THE QUESTION OF TASTE","authors":"J. Rebentisch","doi":"10.7146/NJA.V26I54.103077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/NJA.V26I54.103077","url":null,"abstract":"The essay discusses the logic of distinction under the sign of the contemporary culture of difference and proposes a discussion of the relationship between taste and contemporary art. The recent trend toward greater individualization might have rendered social codes more permeable. But this state of affairs is neither the opposite of the standardization nor does it imply that the social logic of distinction has been suspended. It has merely undergone further differentiation, but without abolishing the signifiers of status. On the one hand art as a commodity partakes in the respective developments, on the other, certain strands in contemporary art can also be read as opposing the subject of aesthetic experience to the subject of consumerist taste.","PeriodicalId":38858,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Aesthetics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43123885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}