the art of negative thinking
there are no critic reviews yet for the art of negative thinking. keep checking rotten tomatoes for updates !
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film trailer for the norwegian movie
kunsten å tenke negativt
( the art of negative thinking), a black comedy due for release in norway in november 2006 .
the positive / negative is a national juried art exhibition, organized yearly since 1985, to feature innovative contemporary art and expose the regions of eastern tennessee, southwest virginia and nearby states about current trends and directions in visual art. by providing consistent platform for dialogue through exhibitions of contemporary art, the positive / negative exhibitions promote diversity, creative excellence and critical thinking within the academic and regional communities .
a winningly transgressive black comedy that skewers pc correctness toward the disabled ,
the art of negative thinking
plays like lars von trier' s
the idiots
meets
one flew over the cuckoo' s nest .
they resented both his negative reaction and to his subsequent attempt to appropriate it .
excerpts from my interview with oliver burkeman, author of the antidote: happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking .
ensemble cast is first - rate, with performances treading a delicate balance between naturalism and stylization, yet managing to engage viewers’ sympathy by sidestepping easy stereotypes. special praise goes to saheim, as the embattled geirr, who teaches his unwelcome guests the “art of negative thinking. ”
zajonc, r. b. (2000). “feeling and thinking: closing the debate over the independence of affect, ” in feeling and thinking, ed j. p. forgas (new york, ny: cambridge university press), 31–58 .
12. ^ shown empirically by kemp and cupchik (2007) who presented viewers in a negative state with a range of positive and negative paintings, and who found that viewers wanted to see the paintings with negative themes a second time, primarily however, “because they evoked thoughts rather than feelings. ”
a winningly transgressive black comedy that skewers pc correctness toward the disabled, “the art of negative thinking” plays like lars von trier’s “the idiots” meets “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. ” sparkily written yarn, about a wheelchair - bound accident victim who challenges the pieties of a therapy group for the handicapped, provides a cathartic message about [ … ]
in the context of this short exchange, i’ve been thinking about negative reviews. what purpose should they serve? how they can they be done artfully, without seeming like a malicious hatchet job (something ulin, for one, said he doesn’t support) ?
the loss of aura seems to have both positive and negative effects for benjamin. he sees the aura, authenticity, and uniqueness of works of art as fundamentally connected to their insertion in a tradition. the reproduced work of art is completely detached from the sphere of tradition. it loses the continuity of its presentation and appreciation .
picasso himself said, “i will never make art with the preconceived idea of serving the interests of the political, religious or military art of a country” [ 48 ] .
“weather conditions” considers these themes while invoking the differences between negativity and criticality. a full decade—its own “negative thinking” spurred by the rhetoric of the bush / cheney administration, hurricane katrina, economic meltdown, and two wars in the middle east—has now passed since september 11. but the current, abject moment of bin laden’s death seems to even further accentuate the timeliness of
for more than three decades, the positive / negative juried exhibitions ensure excellence and diverse perspectives, by inviting jurors who are either artists with strong aesthetic or curators from nationally respected art institutions .
yes. it’s what the stoics call, “the premeditation” – that there’s actually a lot of peace of mind to be gained in thinking carefully and in detail and consciously about how badly things could go .
table 1. overview of explicitly mentioned inputs and outputs in models of art experience .
pelowski m, markey ps, lauring jo and leder h (2016) visualizing the impact of art: an update and comparison of current psychological models of art experience .
benjamin argues that distraction became an alternative to contemplation. distraction is fundamentally social. it replaces the viewer’s thoughts by moving images, stopping the viewer from thinking. benjamin criticises the usual account whereby true art is contemplated and the masses seek only distraction. for benjamin, contemplation is a kind of domination by the author: the work of art absorbs the audience. in contrast, distraction involves the audience absorbing the work of art. reception of art now normally happens in a state of distraction, especially in the case of film. ‘the public is an examiner, but an absent - minded one’ .
vitz, p. (1988). “analog art and digital art: a brain - hemisphere critique of modern painting, ” in the foundations of aesthetics, art & art education, eds f. farley and r. neperud (new york, ny: praeger), 43–86 .
there is a counterfactual approach to considering phantoms, ghosts of phantoms, and negative entities. are you asking us to imagine variable and alternative outcomes ?
graeme brooker is a practising interior designer and head of interior design at the royal college of art .
[ … ] dramatic consequences in terms of its political uses. according to andrew robinson in “walter benjamin: art, aura, and authenticity, ” benjamin saw the delinking of art from tradition as opening the opportunity for art to [ … ]
the late stages: silvia et al. : appraisal theory and emotion with art
encountering agnieszka kurant’s work, i was struck by how palpably her art summons negative space and invokes the negated, omitted, or hidden, which are ultimately defining parts of what we see and experience—be it in the realm of politics, economics, information, or culture .
the loss of distance between meaning and its deployment in immediate propaganda may produce a flattened world in which revolutionary possibilities become invisible. if the audience absorbs the work of art, but the audience is itself trapped in mythologies and alienated subjectivity, then the revolutionary power of art is truncated. the absorption of art becomes tautological, and the lines of flight available are correspondingly reduced. authors sympathetic to benjamin’s analysis might see in this a reproduction of ritual aspects of art .
on this view, one can allow that reference to art - historical categories is a convenient way of classifying art, artists, and art movements, but the fact that this convenience has been widely utilised need not be telling against alternative accounts of aesthetic value .
an interesting, albeit brief, strand of discussion emerged a couple weeks ago during “the art of the critic, ” a panel at the los angeles times festival of books. about the subject of negative book reviews, the panel was divided. lev grossman and laura miller both said—and i’m paraphrasing from memory here—that they essentially don’t do such reviews anymore. the other panel participants, critic and professor elif batuman, bookforum editor albert mobilio, and la times books editor david ulin, all said that negative reviews have a place .
a winningly transgressive black comedy that skewers pc correctness toward the disabled, “the art of negative thinking” plays like lars von trier’s “the idiots” meets “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. ” sparkily written yarn, about a wheelchair - bound accident victim who challenges the pieties of a therapy group for the handicapped, provides a cathartic message about the need to accept reality. following its warm reception at the karlovy vary festival, norwegian writer - director bard breien’s brave burlesque of positivism should be a crowd - pleaser at other fests. pic also has niche theatrical chances, even stateside, in the hands of the right distrib .
for a discussion of “aesthetic empiricism” and some development / departure from currie’s ontology of art (1989) .
in art history from oberlin college and works in the curatorial department at the studio museum in harlem .
when a. g. baumgarten introduced the term “aesthetic” into the philosophy of art it seemed to be taken up with the aim of recognising, as well as unifying, certain practices, and perhaps even the concept of beauty itself. it is of note that the phrase l’art pour l’art seemed to gain significance at roughly the same time that the term aesthetic came into wider use .
the art of letting go is a very simple but powerful process that enables you to let go of negative emotions that are holding you back from health, happiness and the accomplishment of your goals. it works on a very simple principle: i am responsible for my emotions and that i choose the thoughts that sustain my emotions .
once you realize that you are the creator of your own experience and that you have created the negative experience you have and have succeeded in letting go of it, the next step is to decide what you want to replace that experience with. when you realize that you have created a negative experience and once you have succeeded in letting go of it then you can choose to create a new possibility in its place .
os nã³rdicos se permitem fazer piada com temas que na maior parte do planeta nã£o se toca, principalmente quando se trata de deficiãªncia fã­sica / mental. mas o tom nã£o ã© de esculacho geral, pelo contrã¡rio, o riso se dã¡ ao mesmo tempo que nos apiedamos pelas personagens.' the art of negative thinking' nos faz constatar a curta diferenã§a da amplitude dos problemas que podem atingir pessoas em distintas condiã§ãµes de vida. ã? sã©rio, triste e absurdamente engraã§ado .
one might more accurately summarize contemporary formalist thinking by noting the complaint that prominent anti - formalist arguments fail to accommodate an important aspect of our aesthetic lives, namely those judgements and experiences (in relation to art, but also beyond the art - world) which should legitimately be referred to as “aesthetic” but which are accessible by direct sensation, and proceed independently of one’s knowledge or appreciation of a thing’s function, history, or context .
in marxist fashion, benjamin sees the transformations of art as an effect of changes in the economic structure. art is coming to resemble economic production, albeit at a delayed pace. the movement from contemplation to distraction is creating big changes in how people sense and perceive. historically, works of art had an ‘aura’ – an appearance of magical or supernatural force arising from their uniqueness (similar to mana). the aura includes a sensory experience of distance between the reader and the work of art .
art was originally derived from ritual, and depended on it for its aura. the earliest works of art might have been items such as totem poles, cave paintings, and fertility dolls. (in one - way street, benjamin provides a list of differences between art and ‘fetishes’, suggesting the latter are ‘documents’ of subject - matter). in the modern age, art is ‘liberated’ from its dependence on ritual. as a result, the experiences connected with ritual and tradition are lost. the autonomy of art is also lost .
there are also elements which are more art - specific, or which are particularly salient in reports of art experience: (7) transcendence: feelings of more sudden change, epiphany, or catharsis (pelowski and akiba, 2011); (8) aesthetic mode: “aesthetic” emotions and responses, which might involve a state of being, whereby one detaches or uncouples from concerns or everyday life perceptions, often related to periods of contemplation or harmonious enjoyment, as well as potential positive reaction to negatively - valenced or troubling art (cupchik et al. , 2009). (9) negative affect: art can also evoke negative reactions such as disgust, queasiness or anger—outcomes that particularly require an explanation in models of experience (silvia, 2009) .
the presentation below is divided into five parts. part 1 outlines an historical overview. it considers some prominent antecedents to formalist thinking in the nineteenth century, reviews twentieth century reception (including the anti - formalist arguments that emerged in the latter part of this period), before closing with a brief outline of the main components of the twenty - first century formalist revival. part 2 returns to the early part of the twentieth century for a more in - depth exploration of one influential characterisation and defense of artistic formalism developed by art - critic clive bell in his book art (1913). critical reception of bell’s formalism has been largely unsympathetic, and some of the more prominent concerns with this view will be discussed here before turning—in part 3—to the moderate aesthetic formalism developed in the early part of the twenty - first century by nick zangwill in his the metaphysics of beauty (2001). part 4 considers the application of formalist thinking beyond the art world by considering zangwill’s responses to anti - formalist arguments regarding the aesthetic appreciation of nature. the presentation closes with a brief conclusion (part 5) together with references and suggested further reading .
in part 1 we noted the translation of the l’art pour l’art stance onto pictorial art with reference to whistler’s appeal to “the artistic sense of eye and ear”. many of the accounts referred to above focus on pictorial artworks and the specific response that can be elicited by these. here in particular it might be thought that bell’s artistic formalism offers a position that theoretically consolidates the attitudes described .
photography changed the way we experience the world. it allowed art to be democratize through its reproduction – site title
managers should not assume they can balance positive and negative messages. the negatives have by far the greater power and can wipe out in one stroke all the built - up credit of positive messages. in fact, because of the primacy of emotions, perhaps the most discouraging and potentially dangerous thing you can do is to tell someone he or she failed. be careful, then, of who you put in charge of appraisal systems in your organization. these managers must be sensitive to the emotional minefields that all negative messages must navigate .
27. the minotaur was a favourite image of surrealists. the cover of the first issue of the surrealist journal
tradition and ritual have mainly negative meanings for benjamin. but they could also be taken to connote the density of local knowledges, of particular lifeworlds, and of the uniqueness of each person and their personal world. in his works on flânerie and collecting, baudrillard is melancholy about the impending loss of these personalised forms of ritual and tradition .
arnheim, r. (1966). toward a psychology of art. berkeley, ca: university of california press .
you have an obvious interest in patterns—patterns of evolution, economics, labor, culture, dispersion of knowledge—and in the empty or negative space within them, which may represent the unknown, losses, cuts, phantoms, or fictions, all of which are themes in your work .
[ … ] “in marxist fashion, benjamin sees the transformations of art as an effect of changes in the economic structure. art is coming to resemble economic production, albeit at a delayed pace. the movement from contemplation to distraction is creating big changes in how people sense and perceive. historically, works of art had an ‘aura’ – an appearance of magical or supernatural force arising from their uniqueness (similar to mana). the aura includes a sensory experience of distance between the reader and the work of art. ” – found here. [ … ]
benjamin also writes of a triumph of the tactile or actively lived appreciation of art over the optical or contemplative side. he makes the distinction in relation to architecture. a tourist contemplates a building, whereas a user appropriates it in a tactile way, living or working within it. benjamin seems to be suggesting that art should be participatory and interactive, as in theatre of the oppressed. however, he also suggests that a tactile appreciation occurs, not consciously, but through habit. even a distracted person can form habits. hence, today’s art takes the form of the education or construction of habits. this dual process of destroying and renewing meanings is the flip - side of the crisis and renewal of humanity. for benjamin, the positive aspect is inconceivable without the negative .
benjamin also calls in this work for a ‘politicisation of art’. the politicising of art refers to the depiction of life at its most ephemeral. this is part of benjamin’s broader project of the ‘redemption’ of the everyday through a small split which makes a world of difference. the object, detached from the fields of tradition and of conventional, operational use, can be recombined in new ways. life is politicised in becoming a set of fragments which can be rearranged by an active user. this is benjamin’s response to the aestheticisation of politics. art is to be reconstructed as something to be used, recomposed, combined rhizomatically, as a montage. this style of art is radically counterposed to the integrity and wholeness of the artistic spectacle .
much has been done in recognition of the emergence and consolidation of the l’art pour l’art movement which, as well as denoting a self - conscious rebellion against victorian moralism, has been variously associated with bohemianism and romanticism and characterises a contention that, for some, encapsulates a central position on art for the main part of the nineteenth century. first appearing in benjamin constant’s journal intime as early as 1804 under a description of schiller’s aesthetics, the initial statement: “ l’art pour l’art without purpose, for all purpose perverts art” has been taken not only as a synonym for the disinterestedness reminiscent of immanuel kant’s aesthetic but as a modus operandi in its own right for a particular evaluative framework and corresponding practice of those wishing to produce and insomuch define the boundaries of artistic procedure .
the aura has disappeared in the modern age because art has become reproducible. think of the way a work of classic literature can be bought cheaply in paperback, or a painting bought as a poster. think also of newer forms of art, such as tv shows and adverts. then compare these to the experience of staring at an original work of art in a gallery, or visiting a unique historic building. this is the difference benjamin is trying to capture .
she’s the one that prohibits them from speaking about negative issues. (that’s why waste baskets exist). they can’t talk about problems or their personal difficulties, only about future plans, good things to come .
livingstone, m. (2002). vision and art: the biology of seeing. new york, ny: abrams .
you can take the person out of the stone age, not the stone age out of the person .
understanding this multifaceted impact of art is key for numerous areas of scholarship—including all humanities, sociology, evolution, museum education, art history—and is especially key for psychology and empirical art research (leder, 2013). the relevance of the topic has only grown in the past decade, which has seen a burgeoning of psychological aesthetics through the emergence of new empirical methods, growing interest in affect and emotion, and new integration between behavioral and neurophysiological analyses .
’s fame helped to educate the public into a greater acceptance that modern art may have something worthwhile to say .
silvia, p. j. , and warburton, j. b. (2006). positive and negative affect: bridging states and traits. compr. handbook pers. psychopathol. 1, 268–284 .
today, millions of individuals across the globe regularly encounter works of art. whether, in the museum, the city - center, or on the web, art is an omnipresent part of human life. underlying the fascination with art is a uniquely impactful experience. when individuals describe noteworthy art or explain why they go to museums, most often they refer to a complex mix of psychological events (pelowski and akiba, 2011). art viewing engenders myriad emotions, evokes evaluations, physiological reactions, and in some cases can mark or alter lives. reactions can also differ greatly between individuals and settings, or evolve within individual experiences themselves .
[ … ] “an a to z of theory. walter benjamin: art, aura and authenticity” urltoken [ … ]
bellow did sometimes stand up for his work and the lot of the novelist. in that kazin letter, bellow wrote that literary criticism is “a great advantage and a safer game” than fiction writing. i would add that the “safer game, ” the high - ground occupied by the critic, means that he or she must try especially hard to be incisive and exact in a negative review. faint praise, indifference, or an undifferentiated mass of negative epithets would be far worse. the former, in particular, would risk creating the kind of “chorus of weak cheers” that rebecca west lamented in her 1914 essay, “ the duty of harsh criticism. ”
for ruth gould, dadafest’s artistic director, the festival’s future relies on a shift of focus, both in concept and action. “this exhibition breaks away from exclusive views of disability arts”, gould told us, ”in order to capture thinking on human issues and how we interact with — and adapt to — the everyday, the personal and the surreal in a world full of change. ”
according to benjamin, art is now gaining ‘entirely new functions’. the liberation of art from ritual frees it for connections to the practice of politics. responses to art are also increasingly collective – as in audience responses to film – the individual reaction is produced or compounded by the reaction of the entire audience. earlier artworks, even when exhibited in galleries, did not lead to an ‘organised’ mass response. (this difference is probably less relevant in the era of television) .
by the 1830s, a new school of aesthetics thus accessed the diluted kantian notions of artistic genius giving form to the formless, presented in scheller’s aesthetics, via the notion of beauty as disinterested sensual pleasure, found in cousin and his followers, towards an understanding of a disinterested emotion which constitutes the apprehension of beauty. all or any of which could be referred to by the expression l’art pour l’art; all of which became increasingly associated with the term aesthetic .
the concern shared by those who criticise bell seems to stem from an outlook according to which any proposed theory should be able to capture and accommodate the moving trends, interests and evaluations that constitute art history and drive the very development of artistic creation. this is what one expects an art theory to be able to do. this is where artistic formalism fails, as art - practice and art theory diverge. formalism, as a theory of art, is ill suited to make ontological distinctions between genuine - and non - art. a theory whose currency is perceptually available value will be ill - equipped to officiate over a practice that is governed by, amongst other things, institutional considerations; in fact a practice that is able to develop precisely by identifying recognised values and then subverting them. for these reasons it seems obvious that formalism is not a bad theory of art but is no theory of art at all .
while marked here as two separable strands, a common contention can be seen to run through the above intuitions; one which embarks from, but preserves, something of the aesthetic concept of disinterestedness, which kant expressed as purposiveness without purpose. l’art pour l’art can be seen to encapsulate a movement that swept through paris and england in the form of the new aesthetic (merging along the way with the romantic movement and bohemianism), but also the central doctrine that formed not only the movement itself, but a well - established tradition in the history of aesthetics. l’art pour l’art captures not just a movement but an aesthetic theory; one that was adopted and defended by both critics and artists as they shaped art history itself .
leder, h. , augustin, d. , and belke, b. (2005). art and cognition! consequences for experimental aesthetics. bull. psychol. art 5, 11–20 .
– the mixture of bravado and fatalism in the face of death that pervades such spectacles as the bullfight. for a discussion of the impact on picasso of the depiction of agony in matthias gr
while i considered the originality of vision and the quality of individual art works, i also had in mind choosing an exhibition that might cohere in its theme. it is my hope that these diverse art works speak to each other, creating a voice that is greater than the expected sum of its discrete parts .
how has capitalism affected our experiences of art and the media? in the third of his eight - part series on critical theorist walter benjamin, andrew robinson examines benjamin' s famous thesis that mechanical reproduction has transformed the arts, and explores what a' political art' might look like .
to mark the end of the year, the rail’ s art books editors, ben gottlieb, phillip griffith, and greg lindquist, and managing director sara christoph each selected a notable book from the past year to share with our readers. this is not a list of the best books of the year. instead, it is an informal survey meant to highlight the diversity of art book publishing now .
i believe that art—and here i mean visual art, literature, music, film, and theater—is one of the few areas that is not fully bound up with economy, necessity, or logic. and this remains its strength and potential .
bård breien (b. 1971, norway) read philosophy and literature at oslo university, and then studied film in copenhagen for three years. he has written scripts for educational and short films, including que sera, sera (2002). his short film franks prolaps was nominated for the annual norwegian amanda film award in 2003. his feature film debut the art of negative thinking, a black comedy about the encounter of several disabled people and their partners, won best director at kviff in 2007 and a czech lion for best foreign language film. he shot the norwegian - czech - danish coproduction black crime comedy detective down in 2013, whose hero is a young man with down syndrome .
van de cruys, s. , and wagemans, j. (2011). putting reward in art: a tentative prediction error account of visual art. iperception 2, 1035–1062. doi: 10. 1068 / i0466aap
this text must be read alongside its epilogue, and other pieces on fascist aesthetics, to understand how benjamin differentiates progressive and reactionary / fascistic uses of modern media. not every use of modern technology is progressive. the text of ‘work of art…’ is intended to provide a theory of art which is useless to fascism and reactionaries, but useful to revolutionaries in the politics of art. there are continuities between phenomena benjamin treats as progressive (massification, the claim to be represented, distraction, fragmentarity, reproducibility) and all forms of mass and new media. yet only in certain circumstances do such phenomena produce a politicisation of art .
i think it is good for us to have access to so much art instead of being sheltered from it. it allows art and artist to grow and evolve. if there is no way to experience the original form, the reproduction is a wonderful alternative .
this paper had the goal of taking existing theoretical explanations of the psychological processing of art, and placing these into a unified visual basis for the purpose of articulating how, and if, they address specific outcomes from our art experience. these outcomes were also tied to inputs or contextual factors, and general processing stages. through this review, we hoped to both provide a new tool for discussing the modeling of art, displaying how models may differ or overlap, and providing a more general window into the present state of art psychology research. we conclude with a short discussion of these models' synthesis, and suggestions or implications for future research .
the model of pelowski (pelowski and akiba, 2009, 2011) was also conceived as an extension of the leder approach, with the addition of some appraisal theory elements, and attempts to refocus on the specific discussion of changes or evolutions in responses within the art interaction experience .
the diverse processes of appropriation inform the basis of the descriptions of the discipline of interior architecture. these are explanations that often ascribe the subject a slippery status (hildebrandt 2004: gigli 2007: edwards 2011: rogers 2012). at its most extreme this perception manifests itself in the derivative view that the subject lacks a historical, theoretical and regulatory foundation. in the dialectics of appropriation brooker will explore the idea that this unfixed quality manifests itself in a number of ways: as an issue of semantics, and as an intrinsic and essential spatial ambiguity. brooker will propose that rather than a negative condition, both of these issues are elemental to interior architecture: they are built - in to many aspects of the subject. this is because appropriation and reuse, processual - based approaches to formulating interior architecture, ultimately create a particular design language, one that is specific to the thinking about, and the making of architectured interior space .
at the same time, i also wondered whether traditional representational painters and photographers would have anything to say about rubbish, dumps, pollution, and the way our culture is a throw - away society and i was pleased to see among the submissions that some artists that had been thinking about just such issues. their powers of observation make poignant this theme, palpable in the materials used by some of the others in the show .
in defense of a moderate formalist view nick zangwill has asserted that walton’s thesis is at best only partly accurate. for zangwill, there is a large and significant class of works of art and aesthetic properties of works of art that are purely formal; in walton’s terms the aesthetic properties of these objects emerge from the “configuration of colours and shapes on a painting” alone. this would suggest a narrower determination of those features of a work “available to inspection” than walton defends in his claim that the history of production (a non - formal feature) of a work partly determines its aesthetic properties by determining the category to which the work belongs and must be perceived. zangwill wants to resist walton’s claim that all or most works and values are category - dependent; aiming to vindicate the disputed negative thesis that “the application of aesthetic concepts to a work of art can leave out of consideration facts about its origin”. zangwill is keen to point out that a number of the intuition pumps walton utilises are less decisive than has commonly been accepted .
delightfully dark and disturbing, yet hilariously funny film about the nonsense that is self - help literature and the repression of negative emotions. side - splittingly funny in a very sinister way, full of
oh no, they didn' t !
moments and fueled with acute and thought - provoking moments. quite the gem .
a spirited psychologist accompanies a group of invalids to the house of ingvild and geirr, her self - destructive husband who has been wheelchair - bound for two years. geirr, however, rebels against his wife’s attempts to rescue their marriage via positive thinking therapy. a black comedy about dealing with stifling compassion and false sincerity once and for all .
on the positive side, this loss of tradition brings the work of art into the distinct life - situation of the reader, viewer or listener. the work of art can be disconnected from its past uses and brought into new combinations by the reader. think of memes as an example of this. some memes take artistic images – such as the painting of joseph ducreux or a passage from lord of the rings – and recreate them endlessly, through different reconstructions. in his day, benjamin saw film as having a similar effect on culture .
it is fairly well acknowledged that bell had a non - philosophical agenda for these kinds of claims. it is easy to see in bell a defense of the value of abstract art over other art forms and this was indeed his intention. the extent to which renaissance art can be considered great, for example, has nothing to do with representational accuracy but must be considered only in light of the formal qualities exhibited. in this manner many of the values formerly identified in artworks, and indeed movements, would have to be dismissed as deviations from the sole interest of the aesthetic: the pursuit of significant form .
* the book signing event is for the benefit of the dr. karen cajka memorial scholarship sponsored by the etsu department of art & design, department of literature and languages, women' s studies program (wsp) and the student government association (sga) buc fund
thanks for telling us about “the art of negative thinking, ” irina. it sounds like a good antidote to all those motivational speakers, addictions therapists and self - help gurus on television up here, whose books take up so much dead space on the shelves our bookstores. why do folks feel so insecure they must take advice from these “experts? . ” the key for unlocking creative energies lies within. begin by devloping a sense of humor– a dark sense of humor– and feelings for the absurd. it is interesting to watch these “self - help” gurus. theirs is always a monologue, never a dialogue. they preach before admiring bogs, their audience croaking choruses of approval. sounds like bard breien has a bunuelian sense of the absurd. you are fortunate in cuba that cinema is still a social experience, where films can be discussed after their performance. up here we have bacome oh - so - alienated, watching our dvd’s at home, since most of the “art houses” closed in the…
bullot, n. j. , and reber, r. (2013). the artful mind meets art history: toward a psycho - historical framework for the science of art appreciation. behav. brain sci. 36, 123–137. doi: 10. 1017 / s0140525x12000489
a completely fucked up dramedy about some physically and mentally challenged people and their right to be negative about their situation. i don' t really like the point that this movie makes and the
plot
really didn' t make any sense until the last 10 minutes of the film but i suppose it' s a different point of view in the subject ...
perhaps benjamin’s best - known work is ‘the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’. this short piece provides a general history of changes in art in the modern age. benjamin’s insight here is that each human sensory perspective is not completely biological or natural. it is also historical. the ways people perceive change with social changes, or changes in ‘humanity’s entire mode of existence’ .
art was also being used in a similar way by the opposing forces. franco had arranged for a rival display of traditional nationalist art at the vatican pavilion. this display rather predictably included grandiose busts, heroic equestrian statues and portraits of franco [ 44 ]. the german government, which similarly despised modern art, especially by leftists, derided guernica as a painting that could have been done by a four year old [ 45 ] .
great art remains stable and unobscure because the feelings that it awakens are independent of time and place, because its kingdom is not of this world. to those who have and hold a sense of the significance of form what does it matter whether the forms that move them were created in paris the day before yesterday or in babylon fifty centuries ago. the forms of art are inexhaustible; but all lead by the same road of aesthetic emotion to the same world of aesthetic ecstasy. (1913, p. 16 )
jakesch, m. , and leder, h. (2009). finding meaning in art: preferred levels of ambiguity in art appreciation. q. j. exp. psychol. 62, 2105–2112. doi: 10. 1080 / 17470210903038974
while the second half of this statement seems merely to echo the sentiments expressed by wilde in the same year, there is, in the first half, recognition of the contention whistler was later to voice with regard to his painting; one that expressed a focus, foremost, on the arrangement of line, form and colour in the work. here we see an element of l’art pour l’art that anticipated the importance of formal features in the twentieth century, holding that artworks contain all the requisite value inherently—they do not need to borrow significance from biographical, historical, psychological or sociological sources. this line of thought was pursued, and can be identified, in eduard hanslick’s the beautiful in music (1891); clive bell’s art (1913); and roger fry’s vision and design (1920). the ruminations of which are taken to have given justification to various art movements from abstract, non - representational art, through dada, surrealism, cubism .
[ … ] see also: walter benjamin: art, aura and authenticity | ceasefire magazine. [ … ]
13. ^ he was specifically referring to literary experiences, however this would presumably also apply to visual art .
yes, i’m interested in the idea of exformation, which refers to explicitly discarded information—immaterial data that are crucial in shaping contemporary narratives but disappear in the process of compression, editing, or dispersion of memes. the unknown unknowns of knowledge. the notion of negative information is fascinating to me because the field of information is also constituted by what is excluded from it. history and politics are dependent on their cutouts. science is also dependent on outliers that weren’t granted the status of scientific phenomena and hence were eliminated. complexity science has coined the term
in essence, the dialectics of appropriation will set out to position two things. one is that the ‘slippery’ quality of the interior is of paramount importance. far from being a negative condition, it is a feature of the subject. secondly, is the notion that the emphasis of this spatial, disciplinary, professional ambiguity, manifests itself primarily as a composite construct: a history, a theory, a space that is built from, a number of differing ideas, objects, edifices and appropriated conditions .
despite the prominence of these anti - formalist arguments, there has been some notable resistance from the formalist camp. in 1983 denis dutton published a collection of articles on forgery and the philosophy of art under the title the forger’s art. here, in an article written for the collection, jack meiland argues that the value of originality in art is not an aesthetic value. in criticism of the (above) position held by leonard meyer, who defends the value of originality in artworks, meiland asks whether the original rembrandt has greater aesthetic value than the copy? he refers to “the appearance theory of aesthetic value” according to which aesthetic value is independent of the non - visual properties of the work of art, such as its historical properties. on this view, meiland argues, the copy, being visually indistinguishable from the original, is equal in aesthetic value. indeed, he points to an arguable equivocation in the sense of the word “original” or “originality”. the originality of the work will be preserved in the copy—it is rather the level of creativity that may be surrendered. we might indeed take the latter to devalue the copied work, but meiland argues that while originality is a feature of a work, creativity is a feature applicable to the artist or in this case a feature lacking in the copyist, it therefore cannot affect the aesthetic quality of the work. thus we cannot infer from the lack of creativity on the part of the artist that the work itself lacks originality .
this year' s positive / negative focuses on art works that explore the concept of
material transformation
in various forms. in choosing the works for this show, i wanted to focus on the inherent symbolic value of artists' materials. i was especially attracted to non - traditional materials used in new ways. i love it when the material of an art work takes on a life of its own. making something new out of something once devalued offers possibilities and creates potential. thus, i hoped to take a look at art made from recycled trash, left - overs, junk, and inadvertent detritus. i am in awe of artists' exceptional ability to transform waste materials into art, which benefits society by making something of value out of something once discarded. this is a worthy theme for the present economy that really makes sense. it' s also a
green
idea to take things destined for landfills and direct them to museums. it contributes to cleaning up the environment .
martindale, c. (1988). “aesthetics, psychobiology, and cognition, ” in the foundations of aesthetics, art, and art education, eds f. h. farley and r. w. neperud (new york, ny: praeger), 117–160 .
chatterjee, a. (2004). prospects for a cognitive neuroscience of visual aesthetics. bull. psychol. art 4, 55–60 .
[ … ] it’s kind of like…well…i guess it’s more of a…. here. this article can explain the concept better than i can. historically, works of art had an ‘aura’ – an [ … ]
the etsu department of art & design and slocumb galleries in partnership with the honors college, school of continuing studies, women' s studies program, women' s resource center and the etsu student government association (sga) b. u. c. funds proudly present the 31 st annual positive / negative national juried art exhibition from february 8 to march 4, 2016, at the slocumb galleries. this year’s juror is al miner, assistant curator at the museum of fine arts in boston, massachusetts. the awarding reception and juror’s lecture is on february 18 th, thursday from 5 to 7 p. m. , lecture starts at 6 p. m. , at the ball hall auditorium .
locher, p. j. (2015). “the aesthetic experience with visual art ‘at first glance’, ” in investigations into the phenomenology and the ontology of the work of art: what are artworks and how do we experience them? , eds p. f. bundgaard and f. stjernfelt (new york, ny: springer), 75–88 .
ritual is not necessarily reactionary. the communion of ritual practices may be necessary for the formation of non - massified social groups, as in peterson’s account of activism as neo - sect. an example would be the use of puppets in protests. on the other hand, the ‘liberation’ of art from ritual may not free it for progressive politics. it may, instead, become a property of the society of the spectacle .
formalism in aesthetics has traditionally been taken to refer to the view in the philosophy of art that the properties in virtue of which an artwork is an artwork—and in virtue of which its value is determined—are formal in the sense of being accessible by direct sensation (typically sight or hearing) alone .
pelowski, m. , liu, t. , palacios, v. , and akiba, f. (2014). when a body meets a body: an exploration of the negative impact of social interactions on museum experience. int. j. educ. arts 15, 1–47. available online at: urltoken
graeme brooker has written extensively on the interior and in particular the philosophical and theoretical implications of reworking of existing spaces and buildings. this includes the subjects of waste and redundancy. other work includes the exploration of the numerous narratives that underpin the history of the interior and the ambiguity of the subject field and the impact of this condition on the discipline through its research, education, practice and the agents undertaking it .
[ t ] he boundaries of the aesthetic are set by the boundaries of vision, hearing or verbal understanding, depending on which art form is in question. (currie, 1989, p. 18 )
with his coal - black comedy the art of negative thinking, norwegian director bård breien gleefully eviscerates the phony - baloney ,
feel - good
psychoanalytic babble that is so often hurled thoughtlessly at the severely disabled. breien' s main character, national health psychologist tori (kjersti holmen), embodies this approach. all optimistic saccharine on the surface, but a steamroller underneath, she refuses to tolerate any pessimism, cynicism, depression, or anxiety from her patients. the latter include gorgeous marta, a mountain climber almost completely paralyzed from a fall; her troubled paramour, gard (henrik mestad), grappling with guilt thanks to his direct responsibility for the accident; lillemor (kari simonsen), a shrill and obnoxious, sexagenarian divorcée saddled with a neck brace who constantly tossed the
sh * t bag
in therapy - - a tea cozy used as a means of disposal for her complaints; and asbjørn (per schaaning), a bilious stroke victim. all of these patients can deal with tori' s irritating positivism - - more or less. but not so with geirr (fridtjov saheim), a paraplegic from a traffic accident who spends his days drowning himself in booze, chain - smoking cigarettes, and listening to suicidally depressing johnny cash ballads. when geirr' s wife learns of tori' s methods and decides to bring the good doctor to the house to help rehabilitate her husband, it sets the stage for a take - no - prisoners battle of positive versus negative thinking, which threatens to explode into full - scale cataclysm .
funch, b. s. (2013). “the beauty of life in art, ” in the many faces of beauty, ed v. hösle (south bend, in: university of notre dame press), 210–239 .
i often think i could have become a scientist instead. the only thing that i would find limiting is the methodology of science—although that is changing these days. scientists are getting interested in artistic ways of thinking. even the way funding is granted in science is currently undergoing a transformation. science got inspired by models of arts funding where grants are awarded not only for clearly defined purposeful research with a foreseen “happy ending, ” but for a kind of “conscious erring. ”
the art of negative thinking ( norwegian : kunsten å tenke negativt ) is a 2006 norwegian black comedy film directed and written by bård breien . the storyline revolves around a man ( played by fridtjov såheim ) who is adjusting to life in a wheelchair , and the socializing group he is made to join . the film was breien 's directorial debut . it was produced by dag alveberg for the production company maipo film - og tv-produksjon . the art of negative thinking was successful both domestically and internationally , with sales of 35,000 tickets in its norwegian theater run and the highest-gross in germany for any nordic film during 2008 . reviews were mostly positive and the film won multiple international awards . 
the art of negative thinking (norwegian: kunsten å tenke negativt) is a 2006 norwegian black comedy film directed and written by bård breien. the storyline revolves around a man (played by fridtjov såheim) who is adjusting to life in a wheelchair, and the socializing group he is made to join. the film was breien's directorial debut. it was produced by dag alveberg for the production company maipo film - og tv-produksjon. the art of negative thinking was successful both domestically and internationally, with sales of 35,000 tickets in its norwegian theater run and the highest-gross in germany for any nordic film during 2008. reviews were mostly positive and the film won multiple international awards.
the art of negative thinking (norwegian: kunsten å tenke negativt) is a 2006 norwegian black comedy film directed and written by bård breien. the storyline revolves around a man (played by fridtjov såheim) who is adjusting to life in a wheelchair, and the socializing group he is made to join. the film was breien's directorial debut. it was produced by dag alveberg for the production company maipo film - og tv-produksjon. the art of negative thinking was successful both domestically and internationally, with sales of 35,000 tickets in its norwegian theater run and the highest-gross in germany for any nordic film during 2008. reviews were mostly positive and the film won multiple international awards.