Plot structure over character and drama: a new aesthetics for art research

ABSTRACT

Relativistic aesthetics have had a major impact on the development of art research- and practice-based doctoral programmes in the arts. This paper explores research capabilities of arts practice for more propositional knowledge based on more formalist aesthetic qualities in artefacts, as opposed to more relativistic and non-formalist aesthetic qualities. It does so by tracing notions of formal aesthetics from Kant’s natural sublime to Aristotle’s notion of mimesis and catharsis in a number of research works. The examples show how formal aesthetics qualities in the results of art practice are able to demonstrate universal knowledge such as foundational principles, through consideration of a more formal logic in the artwork itself. Together, these works suggest a more formal research agenda based on the capabilities of artistic practices where formal knowledge proposed is rather relative – an aim that has purposiveness but without having purpose, as in Kant’s natural sublime, rather than having a wider social or historic context. Here, non-formalist aesthetic quality of art practice points rather to the applied qualities of a work: that is, to the range of possible applications of the formal aesthetic qualities.

KEYWORDS:

• Art
• aesthetics
• relational
• formal
• research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Clemens Thornquist is Professor in Fashion Design at The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås, Sweden, where he is doing research in the intersection of art, fashion and philosophy. Dr. Thornquist is visiting Professor at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Design and The Fashion Graduate University at Bunka Gakuen University, Tokyo, and is head of the Body, Dress, Space research centre at The Swedish School of Textiles Research Council, and co-coordinator of the H2020 Innovative research training Network in architecture, interaction design and textiles, ArcInTex.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Vetenskapsrådet.