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Virtuelle Räume bestimmen unsere Kultur heute bereits mehr, als uns bewusst ist. Wir betreten sie sowohl zur Unterhaltung, beim Spielen und Lernen, als auch in der Architektur und in industriellen Arbeitsprozessen. Inzwischen nehmen sie in der Forschung ebenfalls eine wachsende Rolle ein. Zugleich steht eine kritisch reflektierende Beschäftigung mit der Ästhetik der simulierten Bildräume, den Prämissen ihres Entstehens und den von ihnen ausgehenden Handlungsangeboten noch weitgehend aus. Zwölf Beiträge aus angewandten Bereichen in Forschung und Technik, experimentellen Ansätzen in Architektur, Kunst und Theater sowie aus theoretisch-historischer Perspektive geben erhellende Einblicke in den kulturell und gesellschaftlich zunehmend bedeutsamen Bereich digitaler Raumkonzepte und virtueller Realitäten.
1. It examines the aesthetic form of Wittgenstein’s texts, so as to consider the use of pictures, comparisons, and instructions as exercises to be enacted by readers, and further analyzes the transformative effects – both aesthetic and ethical – that such exercises bring out.
2. It draws a number of connections between Wittgenstein’s philosophical exercises and particular aesthetic practices.
3. It sheds light on continuities and discontinuities between Wittgenstein’s account of philosophy and the ancient conception of philosophy as an exercise and a way of life.
Improvisation is also the true source of artistic experience. Consequently, the aesthetics of improvisation result in a philosophy of art: Art was born as improvisation. Yet improvisation has its own aesthetic dimension: that of a "grammar of contingency" in which notions such as emergence, presence, curiosity and authenticity explain the pleasures of joyful adventure and empathic involvement elicited by improvisation.
Cy Twombly (1928–2011), one of America’s most important artists, inscribed on his works written notes and fragments of poetry, even whole poems, throughout the whole period of his creative activity. The present Catalogue of Inscriptions for the first time collects in six opulent volumes all 901 of Twombly’s written notations, presenting them in transcription and in the context of their 113 different literary sources, and so traces the artist’s lifelong intellectual engagement with poetry and the forms of the scriptural. More than 90% of the decipherment and more than half of the authors quoted by Twombly are first assignments.
Roland Barthes described Cy Twombly’s oeuvre as a “work of writing”. In fact, Twombly’s use of written texts clearly sets him apart from other second generation representatives of the New York School (Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns). Twombly provided around 40% of his pictorial works from 1953 onwards with textual notations and literary quotations from poets from antiquity to the present day, such as Sappho, Praxilla, Rumi, ʿAbbās ibn al-Aḥnaf, Keats, Rilke, Bachmann, Faiz Ahmed Faiz or Patricia Waters. Yet the level of meaning of the handwritten inscriptions remains an element of his pictorial language whose interpretation is still disputed today, since only 19 poets have been cited to date.
On the basis of the publication, the scriptural becomes clearly recognizable for the first time as an equal element in the structure of Cy Twombly’s work and an essential medium of signification in his pictorial world. The introductory volume, drawing on the results of the work of transcription and ascription, analyzes how Twombly’s inscriptional practice developed and how complex constellations of iconotextual references are created between the scriptural and the graphic in his works. Against the background of the conception of poetics of Charles Olson, Twombly’s teacher at Black Mountain College, it becomes evident that in Twombly the scriptural is the principal bearer of “remanence”, the phenomenon that enables a re-enactment, in each present moment of reception, of what is represented. Cy Twombly described this energy force and emotional intensity as “the phenomenon of finding the memory of something that has vanished and left no trace of itself”.
Eric Voegelin’s “New Science of Politics” is today considered a classic of recent political philosophy, albeit a controversial one. As soon as it was published, the book caused a sensation, especially because of its relatively sharp criticism of the normative foundations of Western modernity. In doing so, Voegelin places the question of the ambiguity of the concept of representation and its claim to truth at the center of his reflections. The contributions to this volume aim to shed light on how fruitful and topical this perspective still is today from various perspectives. The contributions come from authors of different disciplines, including political science, philosophy, and sociology. In addition to a classification of the “New Science of Politics” in Voegelin’s oeuvre as a whole, the volume primarily inquires into the systematically interesting points of contact, which are also of interest beyond Voegelin’s reception.
Both Swift and Pope spent most of their lives suffering from serious illness, Ménière’s Disease (Swift) and Pott’s Disease (Pope). This was at a time when medical understanding of these conditions was minimal. This book examines the effects of illness on each writer’s relations with doctors, treatment, and medicine more widely, and how far and in what ways their own experiences affected their writing. The book explains the contemporary medical context and subsequent specialist knowledge of the illnesses, and places each alongside both writers’ attempts to come to terms with their suffering, not least with respect to the different forms and styles of their works. Each writer’s extensive correspondence is drawn on, as well as a range of texts.
A declarative-reflective, an incorporated-practical and an objectified-technical memory motif is at the centre. These form the basis for the development of the three forms of forgetting that are also central to modern science: forgetfulness, wanting to forget and, ultimately, making one forget.
Thoreau in an Age of Crisis reconsiders the relevance of 19th-century American naturalist, philosopher, and social reformer Henry David Thoreau to our troubled present. This new anthology collects the work of fourteen leading scholars from various disciplines. They consider Thoreau’s life and work in light of contemporary concerns regarding racism, climate change, environmental policy, and political strife. They review Thoreau’s trajectory as a scientist and literary artist, as well as his evolving attitudes toward Native American cultures. The essaysists also consider Thoreau’s acoustics, concepts of play, and impact on later writers. Most provocatively, they reveal a vulnerable and empathetic Thoreau, a far cry from the distanced and misanthropic critic often portrayed in popular culture.