Cycling as Reading a Cityscape: A Phenomenological Approach to Interface-Shaped Perception

This essay attempts to assess whether the perceptual issues posed by the contemporary interface culture, and the constant attitude shift demanded by the new media between the “natural” and the “as if” modes, might be considered a significant challenge for phenomenological aesthetics as understood in terms of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. To demonstrate how the use of a particular interface profoundly shapes the form and structure of an activity as well as enabling perception of a particular kind, the author does not focus directly on the state-of-the-art smart interfaces, but describes the experience of cycling in a large city, with the interface in the form of the bicycle upgraded with an imagined ride simulator. While the former enables a very particular entrance into the world of perception, shaped by its moderate speed and detachment from the ground, the latter enables techno-shaped perception in the “as if” screenic mode. The experience described raises questions concerning the kinaesthetic, proprioceptive and motor features contributing to the cyclist’s mobile perception, as well as pointing to issues related to the reading of the city’s network as a particular spatial configuration generated by the cyclist’s realtime activity. This is the space-time-event-ridescape maintained and modified by the corporeal act of cycling. The spatiality of such a ride does not presume the notion of a space that contains the cyclist, but builds on notions of being-in-the-ridescape (as a kind of cityscape), in terms not only of full corporeal and mental engagement, but also of bodily literacy. The reading of the cityscape enabled by the combination of two interfaces, the bicycle and the ride simulator, is discussed in relation to de Certeau’s account of pedestrian (walking) experience in a big city, his distinction between strategies and tactics, and the notion that each cyclist contributes a novel story to ridetext, which is viewed not as an aesthetic object but as the production of puzzles for the rider to solve. The paper cocludes by questioning the capacity of phenomenology to accommodate the contemporary phenomenon of a “mixed” or “augmented reality” either in concept or in relation to the demands of the phenomenological reduction and the ends of the epoché. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, Volume 10, Edition 2, October 2010: 61-7

E-Literature, New Media Art, and E-Literary Criticism

In his article E-Literature, New Media Art, and E-Literary Criticism Janez Strehovec explores the commonalities between electronic literature and new media art. Rather than deploying the traditional conceptual apparatus of e-literary criticism directed first and foremost to the new media elements of e-literature, Strehovec takes into account approaches from current theories in the social sciences and humanities. In doing so, he draws upon examples of new media art as a practice in which the novel\u27s social paradigms change the way of art-making and challenge the very function of art. Close-readings of some new media art projects including Bookchin\u27s Mass Ornament, EDT\u27s Transborder Immigrant Tool, and Jodi\u27s ZYX demonstrate that new media art is questioning the very ontological status of the field in terms of abandoning aesthetic and artistic functions in favor of their functions of use. In contrast, e-literature\u27s interactions with society challenge the intrinsic possibilities of this field, especially in terms of blurring the boundaries between forms and revolutionizing e-literature\u27s means of expression

Od umetniškega artefakta k umetniški storitvi. Konceptualizacija interakcij sodobne umetnosti z novo ekonomijo in medmrežnim aktivizmom

The beginning of the 21st century is being defined by new politics, the new economy, the information society, techno sciences, multiculturalism, globalisation and new lifestyles, all of which have some impact on art. Art is beginning to omit the nature of the stable artefact as well as the traditional functions of representation and embellishment and is becoming post-aesthetical and process-like. Because the key feature of the finished and stable artwork is not as important as it used to be, the ontological question of what art is has also become an issue of no great importance. Instead, relation questions regarding the interaction between art and techno-sciences, new technologies, the new economy and the new politics have arisen. The key concern of this essay is the highlighting of the cultural turns which have, in these days of the Internet, techno-sciences, the new economy and globalisation, influenced the new concepts and placements of contemporary art and digital textuality. Art 3.5 (a technical term used for the contemporary art of processes, installations, computer games, events, artistic communications, performances and art worlds) is placed in life in reality version 6.1 (another technical term), which has also mutated and undergone many changes. From the author's point of view the changes in the art field derive from the parallel changes in art's subsystem of reality 6.1. Therefore, one can determine in reality at the beginning of the 21st century that even technosciences, new technologies, the new means of communication, the new politics and new economy have, in a way, become artistic.Začetek 21. stoletja opredeljujejo nova politika, nova ekonomija, informacijska družba, tehno znanosti in novi življenjski slogi, ki nedvomno vplivajo tudi na umetnost. Slednja opušča naravo stabilnega artefakta in tradicionalne funkcije predstavljanja in olepševanja; postaja postestetska in procesualna. Ker zanjo ni več bistvena lastnost zaključenega in stabilnega dela, postaja vedno manj pomembno tudi ontološko vprašanje, kaj je umetnost, namesto njega pa stopajo v ospredje relacijska vprašanja, povezana z interakcijami umetnosti s tehno znanostmi, novimi tehnologijami, novo ekonomijo in novo politiko. Osnovni namen tega eseja je osvetlitev kulturnih obratov oz. zamenjav paradigem, ki so v času medmrežja, tehno znanosti, nove ekonomije in globalizma vplivali na nove koncepte in umestitve sodobne umetnosti. Umetnost 3.5 (s tem tehniškim terminom poimenujemo sodobno umetnost procesov, inštalacij, iger, dogodkov, umetniških komunikacij in umetniških svetov) se umešča v resničnost verzije 6.1 (zopet tehniški termin), kije tudi mutirala in doživela številne spremembe. Osnovno stališče avtorja tega besedila je, da so tako velike spremembe na umetnostnem področju (v ospredje prihajajo politične, znanstvene, socialne, družabne in komunikacijske funkcije sodobne umetnosti) mogoče prav zato, ker so se temeljito spremenili tudi soodnosniki umetnostnega (pod) sistema v resničnosti 6.1; tako tehno znanosti, nove tehnologije, nove oblike komuniciranja, nova politika in nova ekonomija so postale v določenem smislu umetniške

Estetika v obdobju medijske in telematične kulture

Die Orientierung der ästhetischen Theorien werden heute sowohl von der Krise der philosophischen Systematik (besonders noch der philosophischen Ontologie) als auch von Veränderungen in der außerkünstlerischen Wirklichkeit beeinflußt. Die Ästhetik kennt zwar noch den Philosophiekomplex (sie blickt über die Horizonte bloß künstlerischen Theorien), doch ist die Machtverteilung innerhalb philsosphischer Systeme für sie nicht mehr entscheidend. Mehr als mit dem eigenen philosophischen Charakter befaßt sie sich daher mit den Analysen der postmodernen ästhetisierten Wirklichkeit, in der die Realität mit ihren Medienbildern verschmolzen ist. Dabei gelangt die Tradition Kant-Schiller-Marcuse-Joseph Beuys wieder zur Aktualität. Die produktiven Ansätze der gegenwärtigen Ästhetik liegt aber auch in der Analytik der Grundbegriffe (Raum, Zeit, Bewegung, Energie, Fläche, Tiefe, Simulation, Interaktion) der Kunstwerke der Medienkultur und der telematischen Kultur (von elektronischen Instantwerken bis zu "schweren" kybernetischen Skulpturen).Na usmeritev estetiških teorij danes vpliva tako kriza filozofske sistematike (še posebno filozofske ontologije) kot spremembe v sami zunajumetniäki resničnosti. Estetika sicer še ima kompleks filozofije (gleda preko obzorij zgolj umetnostnih teorij), vendar pa distribucija moči znotraj filozofskih sistemov zanjo že ni več presodna. Bolj kot s svojo filozofičnostjo se zato ukvarja z analizami postmoderne estetizirane resničnosti, v kateri je realnost stopljena s svojimi medijskimi slikami. Tradicija Kant-Schiller-Marcuse- Joseph Beuys postaja pri tem zopet aktualna. Produktivna usmeritev sedanje estetike pa je tudi v analitiki temeljnih konceptov (prostor, čas, gibanje, energija, površina, globina, simulacija, interaktivnost) umetniških del medijske in telematične kulture (od instant elektronskih del do "težkih" kibernetičnih Skulptur)

POLEMIKA MED BLOCHOM IN LUKÁCSEM O EKSPRESIONIZMU IN REALIZMU

Polemični razpravi Ernsta Blocha in Gyôrgyja Lukâcsa sta pomenili vrhunec znamenite diskusije o ekspresionizmu, v kateri je leta 1937 in 1938 sodelovalo v moskovski reviji (predvsem) nemških intelektualcev Das Wort 15 avtorjev s 17 prispevki. Jedro polemike so temeljna vprašanja estetskega koda umetnosti 20. stoletja, razpeta med dediščino (predvsem neoklasicistične tradicije) in umetniško zgodovinsko avantgardo »izmov« (še posebej ekspresionizma). Konflikt med Lukacsevimi stališči, povezanimi z njegovo estetiko socialističnega realizma, in Blochovimi, zavezanimi teoriji avantgardistične umetnosti, je bistveno povezan z ontologistično omejenostjo njunih estetskih teorij: Lukâcsevim heglovstvom in rabo teorije odseva ter z Blochovo koncepcijo jedra stvarnosti kot fragmenta, alegorije, šifre in diskontinuitete. Med njunima stališčema ni bilo pomiritve; nasprotje, ki je značilno za to polemiko, ni preseženo niti v sedanjih umetnostnih zvrsteh niti v teoretski zavesti o njih