Stephen Davies, The Artful Species: Aesthetics, Art, and Evolution (2013)

This review article critiques Stephen Davies' The Artful Species: Aesthetics, Art, and Evolution

(R)evolutionary aesthetics: Denis Dutton’s The art instinct: beauty, pleasure and human evolution

Denis Dutton’s ‘‘The Art Instinct’’ succeeds admirably in showing that it is possible to think about art from a biological point of view, and this is a significant achievement, given that resistance to the idea that cultural phenomena have biological underpinnings remains widespread in many academic disciplines. However, his account of the origins of our artistic impulses and the far-reaching conclusions he draws from that account are not persuasive. This article points out a number of problems: in particular, problems with Dutton’s appeal to sexual selection, with his discussion of the adaptation/by-product distinction and its significance, and with drawing normative conclusions from evolutionary hypotheses

ПРЕДМЕТ І МЕТОДОЛОГІЧНА ОРІЄНТАЦІЯ ЕСТЕТИКИ СТАНІСЛАВА ОССОВСЬКОГО. (The subject and methodological orientation of Stanislav Ossowski's aesthetics.)

Статтю присвячено аналізові основних аспектів естетичної концепції С. Оссовського. Основну увагу автор звертає визначенню предмета і методологічної орієнтації концепції польського естетика, його розумінню поняття мистецтво, розрізненню автотелічного і гетеротелічного мистецтва, значення його позаестетичних функцій. (The article is devoted to the analysis of the main aspects of Stanislav Ossowski's aesthetical theory. Author pays attention to the definition of subject and methodological orientation of aesthetics. It's also analysed the concept of art, distinction of the autotelic and heterotelic art, value of its non-aesthetical functions. S. Ossowski presents not systematic, but analytical philosophical tradition. He critisizes the metaphisical and speculative aesthetics and prefers to use the empirical methods of investigation. That's why the author states the evolution to the sociology of art in Ossowski's works. Ossowski can be presented as suppoter of wide comprehesion os aesthetical subject. He protests against reduction of aesthetical subject to philosophy of art. In his opinion the aesthetics is interesting in two things: beautiful and art. The important aspect of present article concerns the reflections about essence of beautiful and aesthetical experience. In this context it's also analyzed the problems of aesthetical creation. In Ossowski's opinion the concept of art is not identical to some particular form of artistic creation. This concept concerns the awareness of specific values and formation of artist as socially important man. S. Ossowski states that such concepts as art, artist, creation are new products of our culture. In the primitive societies the art was not defined as separate sphere. It manifested in different spheres of human life. The artistic creation is seen as the mostfree form of cultural life. But the position of art is strongly defined by social functions which have non-aesthetical character. Ossowski's conception of aesthetics cocnerns the sociology of art and pays attention to the art and its heterotelic functions.

Showing and Saying. An Aesthetic Difference

Wittgenstein¿s distinction between saying and showing and the associated thesis, what can be shown cannot be said, were crucial to his first philosophy, persisted throughout the evolution of his whole thought and played a key role in his views on aesthetics. The objective of art is access to the mystical, forcing us to become aware of the uniqueness of our own experience and life. When art is good is a perfect expression and the work of art becomes like a tautology. An important consequence of this understanding of art is the irreducibility of the aesthetic to the scientific perspective

Product Designs that Enchant, Transform, and Endure

For many reasons – sustainability, product aesthetics, market demand for authenticity – there appears to be growing interest in classic products, products that are owned for a long time and stay on the market a long time. This is a conceptual paper which investigates these questions: What is classic art? What are classic product designs? What learning can be applied from classic art and classic product designs to new product designs? Art historians argue that classic art endures because its meanings constantly evolve. This paper reviews the semantic evolution of a classic novel, and the evolution of a classic product, the Austin Mini car. The design evolution of the Mini as well as many other classic products suggests a different design approach than recent approaches which focus on individual target segments, core product meanings, and brand identities. Classic design approaches suggest multiple targets, design ambiguity, and a brand focus on designer identity

What is contemporary art?

The topic of the thesis is “What is contemporary art?”. While exploring contemporary art, its conceptions, characteristics and remarkable events related to it, I concentrate mainly on research of contemporary art as universal, particularly on such phenomena as multicultural art, postdramatic theater, audience interaction, as well as challenged aesthetics. This thesis also considers postmodern art, since contemporary art in its current form departed from postmodern art. I rely on and address the German language prose and drama, as well as visual arts. The work of Elfriede Jelinek, John von Düffel, Peter Handke, Kristof Magnusson, and multicultural artists Vladimir Kaminer, Feridun Zaimoglu are considered. This paper renders art as a blend of different arts, as well as synthesis of arts and different human activities. The thesis consists of five chapters. I rely in chapter I on the artwork of Rebecca Horn, Edith Meusnier, Andrea Polli as a sample of heterogeneity, appearing in unusual forms and places, blending together and erasing borders between different types of arts. Multicultural art as one of the forms of universal art is researched on samples of work by Vladimir Kaminer and Feridun Zaimoglu in chapter II. Chapter III concentrates on universal notions of postdramatic theater, supported by theoretical work of Hans-Thies Lehmann. In chapter IV, which is “Questioning Aesthetics”, I write about body fluids art, and include the work of Julia Kristeva, Rina Arya. Digital universality, one of the main characteristics of contemporary art, is a topic of chapter V. I render contemporary art as the pick of art evolution and cover such characteristics, events or occurrences in contemporary art as the inevitability of development, emergence of different mediums as a result of it, as well as more challenged aesthetics

Productive Misreading in Intermedia Art: Four Approaches by a Musician

This discussion examines the evolution and lessons of four artistic performance works that engage with text and imagery with the mindset of a composer, rather than as an author or visual artist. The works involve computer music, improvisation, video art, generative art techniques, and challenging aesthetics. An analytical discussion reveals that different forms and mechanisms of reading are manifest in the artworks, and reflections upon these elucidate the intermedial nature of reading and the productive, expressive potential of interfering with these processes

Sztuka i dobór naturalny

The relation between art and the idea of natural selection makes the key issue of this paper. The author examines how Charles Darwin's conc ept of evolution might have affected the sphere of aesthetics. However, the author arguments against understanding of art as a side product of human progress and takes it as an independent form of human agency. The critique of various evolutionary standpoints laid out in this article holds to the standpoint that we cannot recreate with other means the moments of pleasure delivered by art. Thus it is extremely important to understand art as a form of human creativity and a neces sary part of our existence beyond biological determinism stressed out by many evolutionary thinkers

Historical and Trans-historical Time of Art

The relationship between art and time is one of pre-figuration–transfiguration, a continuous exchange between the art of the present and that of the past and it is in this sense that we can understand how the works of art are have almost their entire life before them. It is in this sense also that the real meaning of metamorphosis should be understood: The works of art are not permanent acquisitions. They offer themselves the ways through which they appear in another light, gathering up at the same time a series of antecedent expressions in an eternity ever to be recreated. Hence, art’s time is neither a-historical nor exclusively history embedded (in history’s empirical sense). Art’s time is trans-historical: artworks, initiating themselves the process of their metamorphosis, ‘transcend’ time being into time and, thus, they ‘traverse’ history