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Aestheticization

Traditionally, aesthetics is related to high culture and attached to certain experientials domains for music, painting, literature, etc., and in connection with a judgement of taste characterized by – according to Kant - disinterested delight. However, within recent decades a departure from the Kantian aesthetic judgement of taste has taken place, in which not least the German philosopher Gernot Böhme has aimed at developing a new strictly phenomenologi- cal aesthetics that addresses sense phenomena such as atmosphere and affect. This project is also critical of tendencies in ‘aesthetic capitalism’ (Böhme 2016). Today, aesthetics is not only related to the world of art but permeates everyday life often aimed at creat- ing or promoting special experiences.

Market communication is a field where aesthetics was employed quite early, e.g. in advertising and in branding. However, during recent decades aesthetics has spread outside market communica- tion as such so that today, it increasingly affects both professional and private life. A number of researchers have been aware of this for

Guest Editors

Peter Allingham, Aalborg University Gorm Larsen, Aalborg University

Henriette Thune, Universitetet i Stavanger

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quite some time. Among them the philosopher Wolfgang Welch. In 1997, he wrote:

Today, we are living amidst an aestheticization of the real world formerly unheard of. Embellishment and styling are to be found everywhere. They extend from individuals’ appear- ance to the urban and public spheres and from economy through to ecology. (Welsch, 1997).

These observations are currently supported by among others, pro- fessor of comparative cultural sociology, Andreas Reckwitz, who also points to the fact that contemporary capitalism and economy is aesthetic at its core. It is not primarily based on technological progress, but on the contrary, on permanent innovation and crea- tive production of new signs, sense impressions, experiences, and affects (Reckwitz, 2012, p.139).

The aesthetic economy instigates a ‘new enterprise culture’ where the employed individuals develop a new entrepreneurial attitude. A consequence of this cultural ‘condition’ is a rising demand for indi- vidual creativity, professionally as well as privately. Working in e.g.

a value-based organization it is up to the individual employee at his or her own initiative to unfold his or her creative skills within the framework of the basic values and objectives of the organization, and by virtue of an innovative effort to create surplus. Our private lives may well support our professional efforts e.g. through acquisi- tion of creative forms of expression and compatible orchestrations of tastes and lifestyles. This is possible through choice of habitation, decoration, leisure activities, travels, etc. With creativity as a media- tor, work and private life may coalesce.

However, aestheticization is not a new phenomenon. In modern history the appearance of the phenomenon and concept of aestheti- cization is often referred to the cultural sociologist Walter Benja- min’s seminal article “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (Benjamin 1936). Referring to among others to Filip- po Tommaso Emilio Marinetti’s futurist manifesto from 1909, in which the beauty of war is praised, Benjamin writes:

[Mankind’s] self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of

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the first order. This is the situation of politics which Fascism is rendering aesthetic. (Benjamin, 1969 [1935], p.20).

Benjamin found the roots of the aestheticization of political life dur- ing fascism in the missing changes in the ownership of property.

Instead of rights to changes, the masses were offered possibilities of expression within the framework of Fascism.

In the 1990s, the sociologist Mike Featherstone, among others, pointed to the fact that communication, management, media, body, and gender, etc. had gained increasing attention and been exposed to an intensified aesthetic pressure due to postmodern simulations and the blurring of dividing lines between image and reality.

More recent theorists focusing on art and ways of life, among them the American art and cultural critic, Hal Foster, pointed at the beginning of the new millennium in several articles to an increased tendency toward totalizing design of life and the surrounding world on market terms and not on conditions of art.

Among recent editions on the subject of aestheticization the Dan- ish the book Aestheticiztion – connections and differences (Eriksson, et al., 2012) offers a number of thematized analyses, which examine how aestheticization influences various aspects of modern life.

With this call to the forthcoming issue of Academic Quarter we ask:

What characterizes aestheticization of the lifeworld at present?

We want to focus critically on aestheticization in relation to one or several of four intersecting themes: identity, nostalgia, politics, and consumption. With the division into themes, we want to introduce a delimitation of current fields and forms of aestheticization. How- ever, historical accounts and arguments are most welcome.

Identity

Concurrently with the fact that identity is not given with fam- ily, religion, and nationality, and that late modernity implies a de- mand for the subject to form and realize itself, aestheticization seems in this connection to play an increasing role. On the one hand, the innovative and creative artist has become the paradig- matic persona of our time; on the other hand, aestheticization has become an essential factor in the creation of the self. For this pur- pose, everything from performance measures (on Instagram and social media as well as through cosplay and role-playing); over

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body inscriptions (piercings, tattoos, etc.) to special types of con- sumption may come into play.

Nostalgia

A popular assumption is that the present time is characterized by

“retro”, and that it can be difficult to find out what is concretely characteristic of our day and age. Moreover, it is true that nostal- gic moments or motives often appear in numerous contexts. Not least in connection with media where ranges of programmes e.g.

on TV are filled with reality programmes and programmes like The Farm (TV4, since 2001), Bargain Hunt (BBC, since 2000) or e.g. se- rials like Heimat (ARD, 1984, 1993 and 2004), Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010-2015) and more. These broadcasts focus on e.g. production methods or tools and agricultural machinery of the past, arts and crafts items, or culture and lifestyles of the past (see e.g. Niemeyer, 2014; Higson 2014).

Politics

Politics can seldom be restricted to being ideological or argumenta- tive, but during recent decades, the relevance of aesthetics within the political field has become still more obvious, also in connection with the simultaneous medialization of politics. It appears from the way in which aesthetics enters into the profiling of political parties themselves, but also in the activist events of political organizations and parties. Furthermore, the fact that today identity politics plays an essential role in political life points towards an aestheticization of politics, where the rights, cultural artefacts, and expressions of certain groups have become the pivotal point in a political struggle for acknowledgement quite beyond thoughts of social classes and economic exploitation.

Consumption

For many years, consumption has been marked extensively by aes- theticizing staging, which has attempted to suspend the demarca- tion line between company and the surrounding world to a more or less totalizing extent. The aim has been – as in connection with corporate branding strategies – to bring the surrounding world and consumers ‘inside’ the company so that both could be managed and controlled. These strategies seem, particularly in relation to what

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the cultural sociologist Andreas Reckwitz has named ‘the singular- ized society’, to be seriously challenged. According to Reckwitz, a showdown with uniformity and conformity will take place in ‘the singularized society’, and the new benchmark will be the singular or the unique, authentic subject with original interests and curated biography (Reckwitz 2017). Therefore, there seems to be a conflict between, on the hand, a controlling tendency and, on the other, a singularizing tendency that both implies/involves aestheticization.

References

Benjamin, W. (1973 [1936]). Kunstværket i den tekniske reproduk- tions tidsalder. In Kulturindustri. Udvalgte skrifter. København:

Rhodos. English edition: The Work of Art in the Age of Me- chanical Reproduction. In Arendt, H. (ed.) Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books (1969 [1935]).

Böhme, G. (2016). Ästhetischer Kapitalismus. Berlin: Suhrkamp Ver- Eriksson, B. m.fl. (red.) (2012): Æstetisering. Forbindelser og lag.

forskelle. Festskrift til Morten Kyndrup. Aarhus: Klim.

Foster, H. (2002): Design and Crime (and other Diatribes). London &

New York: Verso.

Featherstone, M. (1997 [1991]). The Aestheticization of Everyday Life. In Lash, S. & Friedman, J. (eds.): Modernity and Identity.

Oxford: Blackwell.

Higson, A. (2014). Nostalgia is not what it used to be: heritage films, nostalgia websites and contemporary consumers. In Hamilton, K. et al. (eds.). Consumption Markets & Culture, Volume 17 - Is- sue 2: Nostalgia in the Twenty-First Century.

Niemeyer, K. (ed.) (2014). Media and Nostalgia: Yearning for the Past, Present and Future. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Reckwitz, A. (2012). Die Erfindung der Kreativität. Zum Process ge- sellschaftlicher Ästhetisierung. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag.

Reckwitz, A. (2017). Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten. Berlin: Suhr- kamp Verlag.

Taylor, C. (1992). The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, Mass. &

London: Harvard University Press.

Welsch, W. (1997 [1995]): Aesthetics Beyond Aesthetics. In: Honk- anen, M. (ed.): Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress

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of Aesthetics, Lahti 1995, Vol. III: Practical Aesthetics in Practice and Theory. Helsinki. Accessed 15.10 2016 on: http://www2.

uni-jena.de/welsch/papers/W_Welsch_Aesthetics_beyond_

Aesthetics.html

Timetable

The first step is to submit a brief abstract in English or Danish of about 150 words to be mailed to Liza Pank (pank@cgs.aau.dk) no later than February 15, 2019. The editors will then review the ab- stracts and notify the authors of their decisions soon after. Accepted articles – using the Chicago System Style Sheet (www.akademisk- kvarter.hum.aau.dk/pdf/AK_word_template.docx) – should be e-mailed to Liza Pank (pank@cgs.aau.dk) no later than May 15, 2019. Articles will then be reviewed anonymously in a double, blind peer review process. The articles should be around 15,000- 25,000 keystrokes (3,000-3,500 words), and they can be written in English or in the Danish. Assuming that the articles are accepted by the peer reviewers and the editors, they should be revised, and the final version sent in by August 30, 2019. The issue is projected to be published in October 2019.

Academic Quarter is authorized by the Danish bibliometrical system, and the journal is subsidized by Danish Council for Independent Research Culture and Communication.

15,000 - 25,000 keystrokes (around 3,000 - 3,500 words)

Submission of article (review)

May 15 ^th 2019

Final Article

August 30 ^th 2018

Submission of abstract

February 15 ^th 2019

Publication

October 2019

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