The human body: From its instrumentality to its axiological precedence in the contemporary art of design

Heidegger’s notion of ‘handiness’ combines two meanings, which in my view should be separated. They both refer to ways of characterizing tools in a given culture. Every culture uses tools, and they are all used so they are ‘handy’. The question is: Handy with regard to what? Two answers come to mind. The first one suggests that handiness is typical of the aims achieved in a given culture, which are linked with that culture’s system of values. Having been fulfilled, the aims seem to disappear, but new ones emerge and the cultural values are all the time appreciated. The aims and values constitute a part of the vision of the world accepted by the members of a given cultural community. In such a context, we can understand the handiness of tools as their optimum quality in facilitating the achievement of the aims which maintain the current cultural values, and so the existence of a given culture. The second answer links handiness with fulfilling the requirements of the human body. When considering the body in terms of its biological categories (as an organism) we can bear in mind its universal characteristics such as limbs, height, differences in body measurements, etc. In such a context, Martin Heidegger’s handiness can be understood pragmatically, as the features of a tool when adjusting it to the human body. In this paper, I propose a thesis that contemporary design loses handiness of the first type, while concentrating on making tools more and more comfortable for the human body. The cultural aims and values traditionally recognized in a given culture lose their priority, or seem to be ignored. At the same time, every tool user is given a chance to develop handiness of the first type. Whether we use this opportunity or not is another problem

The Tourist Function of the Palace in Kórnik

Artykuł przedstawia skrótowy opis sposobu badania funkcji turystycznej zamku w Kórniku. W pracy przyjęto założenie, iż znaczenie obiektu wyrażone jest wielkością frekwencji oraz odległością obszarów i wielkością ośrodków, z których przybyli turyści

Przestrzenie kultury i wolne czytanie

na podstawie wykładu inauguracyjnego rok akademicki 2009/2010 na Wydziale Filologicznym U

Trans/figurations of modern times? Disputes over the works of Maria Komornicka (pen name Piotr Odmieniec Włast)

The article is a reflection of how the work by Maria Komornicka (pen name Piotr Odmieniec Włast) was perceived in the past two decades on the basis of an analysis of a monograph by Edward Boniecki (1996), Izabela Filipiak (2006) and Brigitta Helbig-Mischewski (2010) in the context of changes in the interpretation of modern Polish literature. In the article, attention is drawn to three groups of issues which can only be identified on the basis of contemporary perception, incomplete as it is, due to the fact that all the works of Komornicka have not been published. The forms and meaning of broadly defined autobiographical writing has been re-defined, while Polish and regional literary modernism has been revised together with the involvement of literary researchers in the subject of their analyses. The author of the article suggests a schematic differentiation between updating, prospective and retrospective strategies in Komornicka’s work and a reflection on the indirect involvement in social and cultural discourses and discussions developed by contemporary researchers into Komornicka’s work

Dadaism (Re)activated. Artzins and Dada

The article analyses in what way artzins (independent art and literary journals published in Poland in the 1980s and 1990s) drew inspiration from the Dada tradition, and how they made its philosophy live again. Artzins are seen here both as a medium of literature and art and as specific forms of artistic expression (press art). The article attempts to show why artzins and their authors were interested in reviving the avant-garde and Dada ideas. It also investigates how Dadaism functions today in the form of contemporary works and styles which are influenced by this avant-garde movement. What is more, the article tries to answer the question about the nature and definition of Dadaism shaped and reflected by today's artistic projects