I have been thinking about aesthetics recently - specifically what I find appealing when I am looking at a piece of architecture, art, or listening to music, or creating architecture or art. I have deduced the following 'modes' of expression, which can be combined, contrasted or contradicted with each other:
It's only in a fairly modern sense of 'art' that form and content are necessarily distinct. It's possible to hold various degrees of formalism apart from the Kantian or Greenbergian kinds.
Yeah I was hoping to see some Greenberg dropped as well, disciplinary specificity seems to be the foundation for a lot of formalist work in architecture.
But whadda you got agfa? 'various degrees of formalism apart from the Kantian or Greenbergian kinds.'? (and don't say 'Colin Rowe'!)
i never said form and content are not intertwined. i am talking about a specific branch of aesthetics, ie the science of perception, which is formalism. aesthetic formalism makes very distinct choices about form and discounts content. its easy to say that form is content. but thats really just cocktail party talk though isn't it?
I have a theory that all great art is based on the concept of "tension and release."
Rock songs build to a climax, and then diminish.
Movies build to a climax, and then have a denouement.
Theater and dance build to climaxes.
Even great architecture builds to climactic moments.
The best sporting events build to climaxes.
All of these things seem to replicate sex in some fundamental way. I don't think it's a coincidence.
that's a very classical idea, farwest1. modernists went to great lengths to counter that sort of symmetry or teleology you're speaking of. i'm thinking of the music of hindemith, movies by quentin tarrentino or lynch, even the modern idea of space-time refutes that linear continuum. i'm not saying that there has not been a lot of beautiful, important work that adopted symmetry and linearity, but there's also a lot that hasn't.
He might have said that, but Suger sure did go on about the new apse at St. Denis.
Kant's distinction between form and content is practically only a distinction between matter and the immaterial. I don't think Kant would accept material content, even in principle. But you probably know Kant better than I do.
Is geometry form or content? I would argue that geometry is formal, but it can also be content. The Pantheon, for example, has distinct geometric content.
although the dome was used in less splendid construction in i'd have ta say that the pantheon is full of cosmic and political content that probably had a great deal in determining the use of the dome. a declaration about what the state was about.
I'll have a dirty Sapphire martini with extra olives, please. (is it really not even 9am yet? Ah, screw it ... )
I think there are a lot of people interested in establishing the intertwinedness of form and content, because if you have each generating the other, you don't need to call on any mystical ideal origin for either.
Where does content come from? (and don't say Hennessey + Ingalls!) Unless you're going to postulate some kind of Ultimate Meaning in the sky, which for some leads to the unconscionable and unverifiable intrusion of religion into metaphysics, you're going to have a difficult time explaining the origins of a concept like that.
... unless you say maybe content comes from people interpreting form, as in the famous diagram of Ferdinand de Saussure's:
Where the irregular, turbulent form of human thought (A) is mapped onto the irregular, turbulent form of human sound (B) and meaning (or content) is thereby drawn into being through the interconnections, themselves another form of form.
Of course, but more specifially signifying the union of Mars and Rhea Silvia, which issued forth twins: sacred and profane. What else would expect from the coupling of a god (of war) and a (vestal) virgin?
Perhaps that's what the artist/architect does, apply form to content. Yet, in the case of Piranesi's Campo Marzio at least, it is the form within a context that discloses the content (if the observer is astute enough to find it)--the content is implied rather applied.
These questions are generally laced with some sense of Value - this type of form is better than that, this content more powerful than that, this definition is better than that.
At the base of aesthetic questions, I think it's interesting to look at how we arrive at definitions and agreements on 'what is quality' - what is better and what is worse... which puts us immediately into the question of individual judgement vs. collective agreement.
The establishment of a standard followed by its denial is the age old swing of our architectural pendulum. Although it's hard to see any clear standard being formed anymore. It seems we're agreeing to a fractured standard. Who will be brave enough to deny it?
neurocognition and aesthetics is a field that is growing and addresses some of what you;re referring to gabe.
Jul 17, 07 12:28 pm ·
·
Thus the suggestion of "aesthetics eingeschnudeled" (which roughly translates into "aesthetics sloppy-faced").
Perhaps Kant's aesthetics apply when there is an East Prussia (his home after all) and Fassbinder's aesthetics apply when there is no more East Prussia.
Any archinecters ever been to Kaliningrad? Apparently the place is completely German in form yet completely Russian in content. (At least that's what a East Prussian descendant told me what his father's return there 15 years ago was like.)
my grandfather otto was born just down the road in stettin. although descended from the prussians i am not hussar material.
Jul 17, 07 1:00 pm ·
·
Stettin isn't exactly "just down the road" from Konigsberg, but more the exact opposite side of Poland. My grandfather Otto was born in a German Lutheran village just east of Konin, although unaware he was probably descended from 18th century Jewish apostates. I and my brother Otto could well be actually half Jewish material. Talk about mixed-up form and content.
on aesthetics
I have been thinking about aesthetics recently - specifically what I find appealing when I am looking at a piece of architecture, art, or listening to music, or creating architecture or art. I have deduced the following 'modes' of expression, which can be combined, contrasted or contradicted with each other:
Saturation v/[and/or] Reduction
Rhythm v/[and/or] Random
Depth v/[and/or] Surface
Presence v/[and/or] Absence
Comments?
I would add:
Line v/[and/or] Shape
This reminds me of Gestalt Theory
Process [and/or] manufacture
personally when it comes to architecture, i am not an aesthetic formalist. i am more interested in content than form.
program over beauty, vado?
content is beauty
sometimes form is content
aesthetic formalism is not focused on matter or content or what it represents.
"significata magis significante placent."
money is beautiful
"Beauty is the promise of happiness" Stendahl
Form v/[and/or] Content
Better yet ...
Form v/[and/or] Content
how about something less binary but more like...
Random Surface Presence Saturation
The distinction between form and content is not always clear. Where does that leave formalism?
exactly ...
you might wanna read up on the history of aesthetics.
drop us a reading list, vado. Do it!
roger fry for starters.
as far as aesthetic formalists go.
That's actually a bit insulting, vado.
It's only in a fairly modern sense of 'art' that form and content are necessarily distinct. It's possible to hold various degrees of formalism apart from the Kantian or Greenbergian kinds.
Yeah I was hoping to see some Greenberg dropped as well, disciplinary specificity seems to be the foundation for a lot of formalist work in architecture.
But whadda you got agfa? 'various degrees of formalism apart from the Kantian or Greenbergian kinds.'? (and don't say 'Colin Rowe'!)
i never said form and content are not intertwined. i am talking about a specific branch of aesthetics, ie the science of perception, which is formalism. aesthetic formalism makes very distinct choices about form and discounts content. its easy to say that form is content. but thats really just cocktail party talk though isn't it?
I have a theory that all great art is based on the concept of "tension and release."
Rock songs build to a climax, and then diminish.
Movies build to a climax, and then have a denouement.
Theater and dance build to climaxes.
Even great architecture builds to climactic moments.
The best sporting events build to climaxes.
All of these things seem to replicate sex in some fundamental way. I don't think it's a coincidence.
Form and content are expressed through the above modes. Another mode I left out was:
Question v/[and/or] Answer
or
Signal v/[and/or] Signalled
after another thread
i like cocktail party talk. cosmo, anyone?
that's a very classical idea, farwest1. modernists went to great lengths to counter that sort of symmetry or teleology you're speaking of. i'm thinking of the music of hindemith, movies by quentin tarrentino or lynch, even the modern idea of space-time refutes that linear continuum. i'm not saying that there has not been a lot of beautiful, important work that adopted symmetry and linearity, but there's also a lot that hasn't.
Signal v/[and/or] Signalled="significata magis significante placent."
He might have said that, but Suger sure did go on about the new apse at St. Denis.
Kant's distinction between form and content is practically only a distinction between matter and the immaterial. I don't think Kant would accept material content, even in principle. But you probably know Kant better than I do.
Is geometry form or content? I would argue that geometry is formal, but it can also be content. The Pantheon, for example, has distinct geometric content.
although the dome was used in less splendid construction in i'd have ta say that the pantheon is full of cosmic and political content that probably had a great deal in determining the use of the dome. a declaration about what the state was about.
I'll have a dirty Sapphire martini with extra olives, please. (is it really not even 9am yet? Ah, screw it ... )
I think there are a lot of people interested in establishing the intertwinedness of form and content, because if you have each generating the other, you don't need to call on any mystical ideal origin for either.
Where does content come from? (and don't say Hennessey + Ingalls!) Unless you're going to postulate some kind of Ultimate Meaning in the sky, which for some leads to the unconscionable and unverifiable intrusion of religion into metaphysics, you're going to have a difficult time explaining the origins of a concept like that.
... unless you say maybe content comes from people interpreting form, as in the famous diagram of Ferdinand de Saussure's:
Where the irregular, turbulent form of human thought (A) is mapped onto the irregular, turbulent form of human sound (B) and meaning (or content) is thereby drawn into being through the interconnections, themselves another form of form.
*sip*
intertwining content and form is not the same thing as form being content.
Doesn't content come from the context?
Are you this much fun at real cocktail parties, vado?
I like it when content takes on a form that very easily recognized yet not very easily digested.
Yet some people might still argue that anything looks better with a frame.
Did someone mention cocktails?
aesthetics eingeschnudeled
Lauf if that first image were on flickr I would fave it.
im talking about architecture, not painting or sculpture. where form can be content.
.
is that the dick bush logo?
Of course, but more specifially signifying the union of Mars and Rhea Silvia, which issued forth twins: sacred and profane. What else would expect from the coupling of a god (of war) and a (vestal) virgin?
still is form applied to content.
Perhaps that's what the artist/architect does, apply form to content. Yet, in the case of Piranesi's Campo Marzio at least, it is the form within a context that discloses the content (if the observer is astute enough to find it)--the content is implied rather applied.
These questions are generally laced with some sense of Value - this type of form is better than that, this content more powerful than that, this definition is better than that.
At the base of aesthetic questions, I think it's interesting to look at how we arrive at definitions and agreements on 'what is quality' - what is better and what is worse... which puts us immediately into the question of individual judgement vs. collective agreement.
The establishment of a standard followed by its denial is the age old swing of our architectural pendulum. Although it's hard to see any clear standard being formed anymore. It seems we're agreeing to a fractured standard. Who will be brave enough to deny it?
neurocognition and aesthetics is a field that is growing and addresses some of what you;re referring to gabe.
Thus the suggestion of "aesthetics eingeschnudeled" (which roughly translates into "aesthetics sloppy-faced").
Perhaps Kant's aesthetics apply when there is an East Prussia (his home after all) and Fassbinder's aesthetics apply when there is no more East Prussia.
Any archinecters ever been to Kaliningrad? Apparently the place is completely German in form yet completely Russian in content. (At least that's what a East Prussian descendant told me what his father's return there 15 years ago was like.)
my grandfather otto was born just down the road in stettin. although descended from the prussians i am not hussar material.
Stettin isn't exactly "just down the road" from Konigsberg, but more the exact opposite side of Poland. My grandfather Otto was born in a German Lutheran village just east of Konin, although unaware he was probably descended from 18th century Jewish apostates. I and my brother Otto could well be actually half Jewish material. Talk about mixed-up form and content.
versus (and/or)
http://www.museumpeace.com/06/0586.htm
no doubt. my nephew's kids middle name is otto. thats old school.
I like the aesthetics of Ottopian symmetry.
Strict and complete Code/LEED Compliance, Baby!
cf - i love the equest aesthetic!
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