Examining Aesthetic Subjectivity in Embodied Environments

Abstract

This inquiry has been concerned with identifying aesthetic languages that make visible relationships and processes that connect body and world beyond the surface of the skin. It hypothesised that aesthetic language provides a material connection which co-enables this exchange. Examining the aesthetic dimension of the embodiment-environment intersection, this inquiry reasoned, could make tangible the material continuum generated through transient processes of living. The key sites of the home and the landscape framed the scope of this research. The methodology used to undertake this research combined multi-artform practice spanning sculpture, video, installation, and drawing, visual diary-led observation and critical reflection, theoretical research, and critical engagement with the work of other artists and practitioners working in two- and three-dimensions. An examination of subjectivity and of aesthetics as an intersection of body and world centres this research. A new materialist perspective provides a logic and drive for scrutinising this intersection. New materialism unsettles traditional assumptions about the passivity of matter. It provides a framework for re-imagining the materiality of the world and the position of human subjectivity within it: a re-imagining, this research contends, that the current ecological crisis demands. The notion of aesthetics used in this inquiry is an embodied aesthetics that refers to the meaningful sensuousness that adheres and orients the body in the world. Ideas from John Dewey and the field of everyday aesthetics informed critical engagement in this embodied aesthetics through creative practice. This approach enabled a dialogue between special aesthetic experiences, everyday aesthetics, and habitual perception to emerge in the research. This research used aesthetics to examine how spaces are demarcated and different experiences enabled. Over time, the home as it is situated within the landscape became analogous for the body’s intertwining with the environment. In this context, the material passage of water through the home provided a powerful and instructive embodiment of this intertwining, revealing both the demarcation and the continuity of disparate spaces. The final body of artwork is an installation that integrates the key aesthetic languages developed through this inquiry to form a three-dimensional river that is animated with the everyday sounds of water and the textures of domestic warmth. It is titled Oikos, the Greek root for ecology. ‘Oikos’ means ‘whole house and dwelling place’. The artwork reflects the multi-layering of aesthetic relationships through which our bodies fuse with this world.