Post-Media Aesthetics

Objectives

To understand media culture and technology as a means of perception and rationalization of sensitive experience (visual, audiovisual, haptic, kinetic,...);

To situate tensions and intersections between the media and the arts, in their dispute over the aesthetic experience and territories;

To deepen the knowledge in Media Theory that will support a Media Aesthetics approach to contemporary culture and the understanding of its political implications;

To characterize Media Aesthetics in the post-media era, namely through the open paths of post-cinema;

To recognize different aspects and implications of digital aesthetics;

To critically apprehend a new stage of the cultural economy, based on the hyper-industrialization and automation of the aesthetic, but also on strategies of singularization and mass-self communication.

General characterization

Code

02107657

Credits

10.0

Responsible teacher

Maria Teresa Pimentel Peito Cruz Bragança de Miranda

Hours

Weekly - 3

Total - 280

Teaching language

Portuguese

Prerequisites

Available soon

Bibliography

Berry, D. M., Dieter, M. (2015) Post-Digital Aesthetics;
Déotte, J.L. Froger, M., Mariniello, S. (2007) Appareil et intermédialité, Paris: L' Harmattan;
Elsaesser, Th. (2016) Film History as Media Archaeology. Tracking the Digital, Amsterdam University Press;
Manovich, L. (2017) «Automating Aesthetics: Artificial Intelligence and Image Culture» in: Flash Art International no. 316, September–October;
Manovich, L. (2010) «What is Visualisation?» in Poetess Archive Journal 2.1, pp.1-32;
Rancière, J. (2004) The Politics of Aesthetics, NY: Continuum;
Renaud, Alain. (2012) «O Interface informacional ou o sensível no seio do inteligível», in Revista de Comunicação e Linguagens, Nr. 43/44, Lisboa: Relógio d' Água, pp. 139-159;
Shaw, Jeffrey (2012) «New Media Art and the Renewal of Cinematic Imaginary» in: Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, Volume 10 Numbers 2 & 3, pp. 173-177;
Stiegler, Bernard (2015) Symbolic Misery, Vol. 2 - The Catastrophe of The Sensible, Polity Press.

Teaching method

The course methodology is based on the presentation of concepts chosen from the scope of Media Theory and Aesthetics. This work requires the initial comment of some foundational bibliography of both fields, through an expository methodology. The approach to the context of new media and related bibliography, in turn, will be conducted in a more exploratory way, with the participation of students in the discussion of these readings and through the analysis of objects and practices of digital aesthetics, also with the participation of students.

Evaluation method

Continuous Assessment - Oral presentation of a text and participation in class(40%), Written work on one of the themes of the program or an object within the scope of post-media aesthetics(60%)

Subject matter

1. The Aesthetical Apparatus (brief archaeology)

- Aesthetics, "Sensitive Reason" and "Sensus Communis" (Baumgarten and Kant);

- Media Aesthetics and the rigging of perception: cultural and political implications;

- Modern techno-aesthetics: "ubiquity" (Valéry) of the sensitive, "shock" (Benjamin) and "narcosis" (McLuhan);

- Industrialization of the aesthetic: tensions and intersections between media and arts.

2. Aesthetics and Post-Mediality

- Multimedia as the end of media sensory specialization;

- Post-Cinema as post-medium aesthetics;

- New media and intermediality.

3. Digital Aesthetics

- Virtualization and Interfaces;

- Simulation, VR and Machine Vision;

- Information and Diagrammatic Visualization;

- Hyper-industrialization and Aesthetic Automation;

- The aesthetics of networks, automatic curation of taste and control of affection;

- The new economy of Hyper-attention;

- Plasticity, stylization and mass self-communication.

Programs

Programs where the course is taught:

Area of specialisation in Contemporary Culture and New Technologies