THE SUBJECT OF DANCE: DANCE BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL

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Despite the fact that dance is inconceivable without a body dancing, the soul was traditionally understood as the subject of dance. Given the fact that the art of dance underwent its first aesthetical analysis during the modern era, as one of the fine arts, it was philosophically understood against the background of dualism, of soul and body being separated and mutually exclusive entities. In such context, the body was seen as a mere material object, deprived of any features required for the subject of any art. On the other hand, the soul was seen as active, productive, creative, as the origin of meaning and as using body to convey meanings to other minds. Therefore, for the first dance aesthetics the soul was interpreted as the subject of dance, and the body as its instrument. However, the modern idea of dance became the basis for its theoretical inquiry, to be questioned only in the second half of the 20th century. Relying on phenomenology, contemporary dance aestheticians inverted such idea, proclaiming body as the true subject of dance, and ascribing to the body all creative and artistic features that were traditionally ascribed to the soul. In this essay I will examine such inversion, by comparing the most important consequences of the traditional idea with new, contemporary and alternative solutions, based on the idea of body as а kinaesthetic phenomenon. The analysis will show the problems of such inversion, as well as possible further consequences of the idea that body, a kinaesthetic phenomenon, is the true subject of dance. 

AESTHETICS AND MEDIA PHILOSOPHY

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This text deals with the relation between the aesthetics and the philosophy of the media, in a number of ways. First of all, the article shows that the philosophy of the media has been first recognized in the domain of aesthetics, or more precisely, modern aesthetics. Then, it determines the subject of research, in relation to aesthetics as the preceding discipline. In terms of research methods, the paper continues with a comparison between aesthetics and the media philosophy. Namely, the media philosophy, in contrast to aesthetics, appears exclusively in the context of interdisciplinary research. Also, the philosophy of the media is related to the aesthetics of communication, and is then considered in relation to the media aesthetics. It turns out that the philosophy of the media really uses the same repertoire of issues as the aesthetics, but additionally poses those questions that relate to new aesthetics i.e. the media reality. Such reality is, as we well know, a result of technology. The media philosophy, however, does not question just the artificially or technologically produced sensibility, it also deals with the theories that define such sensibility. This is why the media philosophy is an opinion of an opinion that studies the entire domain of the media, including different theories of the media. And finally the media philosophy, which is definitely more than a mere aesthetics of the media since it has its own epistemological, ontological, ethical and other aspects of study, is most of all based on the critique of the media as well as the background of the media – which is the world of the capital. It is, therefore, an engaged theory whose starting point is in aesthetics and the outcome in a critical questioning of the sphere of sensibility generated in the media.

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE UTILITARIAN AND ANTI-UTILITARIAN IN EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY AND CULTURE

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It has already been recognized that the philosophy of Francis Bacon, with utilitarian theory of knowledge and his view that man has rights over nature and should become her “servant and master” is the philosophical foundation for technological civilization. This paper sheds some light on the process of spreading of utilitarian values from the gnoseology to the moral and aesthetic field. This process is key offspring of the British philosophy. Another key offspring of the British philosophy is aesthetic reaction to the utilitarianism. Together, the two trends represent crucial philosophical events to have occurred on European soil, from the time of the renaissance to this day.

THE PRODUCTION OF MEANING THROUGH LANGUAGE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

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By developing modern theoretical approaches, starting from linguistics, through semiotics to the theory of visual culture, photography is no longer considered as an objective and realistic visual representation of what was in front of the camera lenses at the moment of taking a picture, because it is also necessary to take into account protocols and codes that generate our visual experience. Although the photograph looks convincing, clearly and easily understandable because of its “apparent” visual similarity to what it shows, the way we view the photograph is not based solely on our natural perceptual ability. Scopic regimes are directly dependent on existing social practices, especially the language we use. If by language we mean any communication system that uses signs organized in a certain way, then visual representations can be considered as a practice of producing meanings determined by the visual language that will be the subject of our research. In the photograph we see and recognize what is depicted not only because photograph resembles it, but also because it belongs to the type of representation that we have learned to ‘read’ in a certain way. The relationship between the photograph and the object is not direct and natural, but conventional. Similarity is not based solely on the matching of their visual properties, but also on the practices that are involved in the production of meaning. 

JEFF KOONS’S GAZING BALL

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The text analyses the artistic approach in Jeff Koons’s Gazing Ball. This art series consists mainly of famous artwork reproductions joined by lapis lazuli balls of highly reflective surfaces. Relying on the strategy of appropriation, Koons is pulling a line that connects several centuries of development of the West European art. The selection of artworks, which are reproduced and then exposed, is the result of a strategic decision, giving Koons the status of an artist-curator. By applying appropriation in Gazing Ball series, Jeff Koons has expressed his attitudes towards artistic heritage on several levels. Nothing remains spared, from an institutionalized art history, through dominant interpretative frameworks and understanding of the original – copy relationship, to the very experience of the artwork itself. Although Koons avoids an activist position, his work do not leave the observer indifferent. It invites him/her to re-examine his or her attitude towards artistic heritage.

AESTHETICS OF THE CLASSICAL CHINESE PAINTING

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Over a period of one thousand years (7th-17th c.), a great number of works of a very broad spectrum in style, themes, genre and aesthetics were created in the Chinese fine arts. A special creative period was between the 10th and the 13th century, which also produced a great number of written works, in which the authors developed their aesthetics, explaining how they understand art and creativity, especially in relation to painting. In this work, we focus on creativity related to painting and on painting theories and aesthetics. Some of these texts are close to the texts on painting written by Leonardo da Vinci (round the year 1500), except the Chinese texts were mostly written several centuries before his time.

IS THERE A NEED FOR PHILOSOPHICAL AESTHETICS

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The author examines whether philosophical aesthetic insights are relevant in our historical situation. This question was raised in the context of the more and more frequent contemporary attempts to establish aesthetics as a specialized empirical science or attempts to incorporate aesthetics in the already existing specialized sciences. The first chapter gives a brief overview of the (pre)history of aesthetics from its founding to the contemporary time. Then, using the teachings of Milan Damnjanović, the author examines some of the key assumptions of the empirically oriented ideas of aesthetics on the one hand, and the contemporary philosophical concepts of aesthetics, on the other. The third chapter examines the significance of philosophical aesthetics in relation to other non-philosophical aesthetic conceptions, and concludes that the problems of aesthetics, in addition to the empirical approach, also need philosophical enquiries and foundations.

ART, NATURE, SCIENCE, CRAFT, TECHNIQUE

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The author discusses the possibility of defining the concept of art. Using classical types of definition is rejected as it is impossible to unambiguously determine the differentia specifica of art in relation to other human practices. Instead, the author suggests a different approach to this problem which is reflected in the examination of the differences between art, on the one hand, and nature, science, crafts and technique, on the other. While examining the relation between art and these other forms of human practices, the author also points out the most important historical transformations of the concept of art. Finally, the author concludes that, in the effort to define a modern concept of art, it is necessary to clear this concept of the inherited assumptions and prejudices that can distort its true meaning.

EDITOR’S NOTE

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