L'esperienza estetica al supermarket dell’aura

Artistic function within the global society is not more to produce “beauty” instead to acting inside communication. At Baudelaire’s time beauty was the ephemeral and bizarre. Masterpiece, work of art now is rather an open device. At the beginning of the modern era, cinema creates a new kind of spectator as an absent-minded expert, as W. Benjamin said. The new technological condition produces itself a sort of technical aura (so is for radio, cinema, records etc.) But as K. Marx said «production produce consume». So a new condition of aura in communication era lies in the ephemeral artist’s act. Art is now in the era of “gas”, to live the aura is just to breath an atmosphere as Y. Michaud says. Artistic function is to produce relations and public relations. Curators they work as cool hunters or disc jockey and museums are a new kind of mass media for an absent-minded public enjoying in the supermarket of aura

L'esperienza estetica al supermarket dell’aura

Artistic function within the global society is not more to produce “beauty” instead to acting inside communication. At Baudelaire’s time beauty was the ephemeral and bizarre. Masterpiece, work of art now is rather an open device. At the beginning of the modern era, cinema creates a new kind of spectator as an absent-minded expert, as W. Benjamin said. The new technological condition produces itself a sort of technical aura (so is for radio, cinema, records etc.) But as K. Marx said «production produce consume». So a new condition of aura in communication era lies in the ephemeral artist’s act. Art is now in the era of “gas”, to live the aura is just to breath an atmosphere as Y. Michaud says. Artistic function is to produce relations and public relations. Curators they work as cool hunters or disc jockey and museums are a new kind of mass media for an absent-minded public enjoying in the supermarket of aura

Impact of insulin resistance on cardiac and vascular function

Background Insulin resistance (IR), constitutes an important cardiovascular risk factor and can cause ischemic heart disease. It can lead to left ventricular dysfunction with a mechanism independent of ischemic heart disease and it is closely associated with impaired vascular function. The aim of our study was to explore the impact of IR on cardiac and vascular function, in patients with cardiovascular risk factors but angiographically undamaged coronary arteries. Methods We studied 32 patients (62.06 ± 11.19 years) with cardiovascular risk factors. All patients underwent coronary angiography, echocardiography, Doppler ultrasound of carotid arteries and laboratory tests. Exclusion criteria were coronary artery disease detected by coronary angiography, diabetes mellitus, creatinine above 1.5 mg/dl, atrial fibrillation or malignant arrhythmias, left-ventricular hypertrophy, valvular heart disease, ejection fraction below 50%. The presence of insulin resistance was assessed using the Homeostasis Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR). Each patient underwent a complete echocardiographic examination including Global Longitudinal Strain assessment and carotid artery ultrasound scan including measurement of arterial stiffness. Results The patients were divided into two groups based on the median value of HOMA-IR, the first group for values < 4.14 and, the second, for values ≥ 4.14. Ejection fraction and diastolic function did not significantly differ between the two groups, whether in patients with higher levels of HOMA-IR (≥ 4.14) we observed a Global Longitudinal Strain (GLS) that was significantly reduced (− 16.50 ± 1.37% vs. − 20.73 ± 1.84%, p = 0.0015) vascular stiffness, measured in the carotid arteries as pulse wave velocity (PWV) (9.70 ± 1.75 m/s vs. 7.40 ± 1.89 m/s, p = 0.00148) that was increased. At multivariate analysis HOMA-IR was an independent predictor of myocardial dysfunction (GLS: coefficient 0.1156, p < 0.0001). Conclusion Insulin resistance is associated with subclinical myocardial and vascular alterations in patients without significant coronary artery disease, measured as a reduction of Global Longitudinal Strain, and increased arterial stiffness. Our results underscore the importance of studying the interaction between ventricular function and vessels, in the perspective of more effective preventive and therapeutic interventions

aura

A partire dalle riflessioni di Walter Benjamin si pone la questione se sia ancora possibile parlare di “opere d’arte” o se nell’epoca delle immagini tecnicamente riproducibili l’arte sia qualcosa di irrimediabilmente “passato”, priva ormai di un suo autentico compito. La posta in gioco è la funzione “critica” dell’arte come manifestazione di un’irriducibile alterità in un mondo globalizzato che tende a trasformare ogni prodotto in merce scambiabile e sostituibile e dove sempre più prevalgono le istanze idolatriche e simulacrali. La riproducibilità tecnica mette così in luce un problema forse ancora più radicale: la trasformazione dell’esperienza percettiva. Domandarsi, allora, se sia ancora possibile parlare di “aura” significa non solo chiedersi quale sia lo status dell’arte oggi, ma significa anche e soprattutto ripensare l’orizzonte di un’esperienza estetica

Dico quello che dico, vedo quello che vedo...e forse mi sbaglio.

Il tema della tautologia tra Adorno e Wittgenstei