Back to Chapter 1. This chapter explores the art of Warhol and the Dada Movement as part of its argument that {fluff,style,rhetoric} has made a come back and is equally, if not more important than actual stuff: “The lesson was simple and, once learned, tedious. Art is not stuff made out of stuff taken from the earth’s… Continue reading Economics of Attention Chapter 2
Category: Aesthetics
Ph.Dad Episode 4 – Making Wood Finish for Kids’ Toys
I’ve long loved the aesthetics of wood. I created and ran the website for Unfinished Furniture Showcase and have a lot of real wood furniture in my house thanks to that position. As I learned about the educational philosophy, I was excited to see the emphasis on wood toys and the importance of a child… Continue reading Ph.Dad Episode 4 – Making Wood Finish for Kids’ Toys
An Aesthetics of Books: Why Getting Rid of Books Is Difficult
“I only buy new books so that I can make sure they don’t have any highlighting or notes in them. If I died, I wouldn’t want anyone to find my books and think other people’s notes were mine.” When one of my teachers in graduate school said this, I at first took it as a… Continue reading An Aesthetics of Books: Why Getting Rid of Books Is Difficult
What Your Facebook Profile Picture Says About You
I. INTRODUCTION: While our inner thoughts, processes and philosophies are inside of us we can sometimes express those identifiers subconsciously. We’ve heard of left- and right-brained people; here’s an easy chart to help you understand what that means: What I want to know is if we can we use self-preferred photography or commissioned art to… Continue reading What Your Facebook Profile Picture Says About You
5 Reasons To Power Down During Dinner
Lately I’ve been very focused on food. It’s something that we probably don’t think about often enough but permeates pretty much every aspect of our lives and is a major focus of each and every day. I didn’t know anything about calories until college, and really didn’t start to expand my palate to include delicacies… Continue reading 5 Reasons To Power Down During Dinner
Noticing Beauty
Of all places, I received the following from my insurance agent at Allstate. I thought this was a particularly interesting message in the midst of thinking about beauty. It’s all around us, constantly. We just have to stop to notice it: “A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and played the… Continue reading Noticing Beauty
Review: Umberto Eco On Ugliness
As a followup to Umberto Eco’s History of Beauty, I have also created a presentation on his “On Ugliness” for my course. Surprisingly, I found the images and related passages about ugliness much more interesting than the ones about beauty. As Eco himself notes, the topic of ugliness is one that is written about much… Continue reading Review: Umberto Eco On Ugliness
Changing Perceptions of Beauty
The Guardian recently posted a commentary on new work being displayed by Anna Utopia Giordano. The Guardian commentary declares that art’s great nudes have gone skinny. I chose this as a follow-up t the last post where we looked at the history of beauty, because I think it’s an interesting example of how our concepts… Continue reading Changing Perceptions of Beauty
Umberto Eco’s History of Beauty
An important piece of preparing for my upcoming aesthetic’s course is Eco claims to take a look at beauty historically with no preconceived notions. As far as that task goes, it’s a huge success, and I was personally introduced to a wide variety of artistic styles with which I wasn’t previously familiar. The biggest weakness is that… Continue reading Umberto Eco’s History of Beauty
Review: Susan Sontag On Photography
Why On Photography Matters is one of the most quoted academic works on the subject of photograph, and generally comes up any time you’re having a serious discussion about photography. I recently read it while developing an aesthetics class that is going to focus on questions about what art and beauty are. Photography is one of the… Continue reading Review: Susan Sontag On Photography