Design and the Question of Contemporary Aesthetic Experiences

Abstract

The article raises the question of the historical relativism of aesthetic experiences and argues that aesthetic experiences have changed according to new conditions in the contemporary age of globalization, mediatization and consumer culture. In this context, design gains attention as a primary case for aesthetic evaluation as design objects are, more than ever, framed and staged to be experienced aesthetically. Basing on this starting point, the article argues that an understanding of contemporary aesthetic experiences requires a meeting of cultural theory and philosophical approaches. On the one hand, cultural theory is required to understand the changed conditions of the production, circulation and consumption of aesthetic meaning in cultural forms of art and design. On the other, philosophical aesthetics gives access to understanding the mechanisms of aesthetic judgments and how they base on specific categories. It is a central argument of the article that aesthetic judgments are not only operators of ahistorical epistemology, but are culturally produced as well. The article discusses the question of contemporary aesthetic experiences through three questions: the role of aesthetic judgments, the role of aesthetic categories and the role of design in the case of a pair of TMA-2 headphones.

Keywords:

• Aesthetics
• cultural theory
• aesthetic economy
• aesthetic judgment
• aesthetic categories
• Immanuel Kant
• TMA-2 headphones

Notes

1. Not to be confused with the more recent movement of ‘Everyday Aesthetics.’ This movement roughly aims to expand the field of the aesthetic from being limited to art to everyday appearances (e.g. Saito 2010; Leddy 2012), whereas Featherstone aims to understand the cultural logic of producing aesthetic perceptions through, e.g., the rise of commercials in Paris in the middle of the nineteenth century.

2. Even though, as clearly pointed out by Lehmann, Kant does not explicitly talk about ‘ästhetische Erfahrung’ (Lehmann 2016, 18).

3. In this way, Forsey’s book can be read as an aesthetic theory on design, as well as a plea for the relevance of Kant’s third critique.

4. In relation to design, psychologically oriented approaches have a tendency to focus on pleasure as the basic element of aesthetics. For this, see, e.g., Project UMA at the University of Delft, Holland (UMA 2017).

5. Forsey states (and celebrates, rightly) Kant’s position: ‘Kant’s account is […] unique in its attempt to make aesthetic judgments objective and necessary without reverting to an ontology of beautiful objects; to locate that objectivity within the faculty of judgment is a philosophical coup that has not been repeated or superseded’ (Forsey 2013, 134).

6. Rosenkranz is a dialectical thinker in the tradition of G.W.F. Hegel (and a student of his) as he is interested in the ugly as a reversal of beauty. In accordance with his time, he states that beauty is absolute, whereas das Häβliche, the ugly and nasty, is relative to beauty.