Roundtable: Beauty #294
April 26, 2017
Spektrum
Berlin
--
Guest speakers: Chris Fenwick, Christina Dimitriadis, Joshua Fineberg, Melissa Steckbauer
Moderated and organized by Dennis Schep
"I am among the polymorphously perverse but I do not only eroticize The Everything, I also experience feelings of great beauty and symmetry when I am in concert with The Everything and actively listening. For me, recognizing this state of affinity has more to do with intuition and sentience than analysis. Therefore I won’t speak to aesthetics per se because we have foreground and then we have deep background when it comes to those elements which are culturally ingrained and specific and may be highly aestheticized, fetishized, or even kitsch. I would argue that if and when we evolve on an interpersonal, intercultural level, and in all likelihood as a species, should we increase our ability to experience pleasure and relaxation, we will likely broaden our field of perceived beauty as well as our capacity to see the field itself differently. I.e., acknowledging that a human perspective is not the principal perspective, that definitions of aliveness and authority on these matters are perhaps not what we think they are. Our scope is limited and we need to take this into account every time we attempt to create a definition.
We can alter the way in which we read beauty by acknowledging that it is a layered experience relative to our capacity to deepen and expand our perception--with experience being a negotiable term--and speaking solely for myself, the experience or language through which I read beauty is absolutely haptic. So again, I am less interested in the aestheticization of things, and more interested in understanding beauty as it expresses through the body. Personally, recognizing interconnectivity as a form of beauty induces a dynamic, physiological response. Living from within the fabric of The Everything sends a wave of charge through the body, either eliciting tears and a feeling of being moved, a soft fluttering in the sex organs, or a full body, electric wash. In any case, it is based upon a seeming acknowledgement of meaningful connectivity with whatever appears to exist “outside” of the self; I would argue that this feeling of connectivity is more or less always there but is only nodded to once in a while; on such select occasions, it stirs a symphony within the body.
These reminders may or may not be based on the ocular, all of this information may be happening on a post-human, immaterial wavelength--and one could argue about the origin of such insight. Is this a simulation? Is physiological response--ocular or not--merely a manifestation of brain function and cultural intersection? Is perceived pleasure and enjoyment born of imagination or does it exist--a sublime and measurable interconnectivity--apart from human perception. Leaving those questions aside, what I find interesting is the capacity for an expanded view--past the installation of culturally specific values, objects, historiographies and into some larger paradigm, again based on a physiological response, a feeling of being a part of a larger organism or aliveness. I locate this as an intuitive paradigm, related to a broad emotional spectrum. For me it is usually, initially ocular, that said, I spend most of my time engaged within visual strata. However, I work very hard to relax and challenge the limits of my own cultural framework, surrendering whenever possible, into the imaginary. Thus, entering a realm of largely immeasurable, but ecstasy-inducing conditions."
--Melissa
April 26, 2017
Spektrum
Berlin
--
Guest speakers: Chris Fenwick, Christina Dimitriadis, Joshua Fineberg, Melissa Steckbauer
Moderated and organized by Dennis Schep
"I am among the polymorphously perverse but I do not only eroticize The Everything, I also experience feelings of great beauty and symmetry when I am in concert with The Everything and actively listening. For me, recognizing this state of affinity has more to do with intuition and sentience than analysis. Therefore I won’t speak to aesthetics per se because we have foreground and then we have deep background when it comes to those elements which are culturally ingrained and specific and may be highly aestheticized, fetishized, or even kitsch. I would argue that if and when we evolve on an interpersonal, intercultural level, and in all likelihood as a species, should we increase our ability to experience pleasure and relaxation, we will likely broaden our field of perceived beauty as well as our capacity to see the field itself differently. I.e., acknowledging that a human perspective is not the principal perspective, that definitions of aliveness and authority on these matters are perhaps not what we think they are. Our scope is limited and we need to take this into account every time we attempt to create a definition.
We can alter the way in which we read beauty by acknowledging that it is a layered experience relative to our capacity to deepen and expand our perception--with experience being a negotiable term--and speaking solely for myself, the experience or language through which I read beauty is absolutely haptic. So again, I am less interested in the aestheticization of things, and more interested in understanding beauty as it expresses through the body. Personally, recognizing interconnectivity as a form of beauty induces a dynamic, physiological response. Living from within the fabric of The Everything sends a wave of charge through the body, either eliciting tears and a feeling of being moved, a soft fluttering in the sex organs, or a full body, electric wash. In any case, it is based upon a seeming acknowledgement of meaningful connectivity with whatever appears to exist “outside” of the self; I would argue that this feeling of connectivity is more or less always there but is only nodded to once in a while; on such select occasions, it stirs a symphony within the body.
These reminders may or may not be based on the ocular, all of this information may be happening on a post-human, immaterial wavelength--and one could argue about the origin of such insight. Is this a simulation? Is physiological response--ocular or not--merely a manifestation of brain function and cultural intersection? Is perceived pleasure and enjoyment born of imagination or does it exist--a sublime and measurable interconnectivity--apart from human perception. Leaving those questions aside, what I find interesting is the capacity for an expanded view--past the installation of culturally specific values, objects, historiographies and into some larger paradigm, again based on a physiological response, a feeling of being a part of a larger organism or aliveness. I locate this as an intuitive paradigm, related to a broad emotional spectrum. For me it is usually, initially ocular, that said, I spend most of my time engaged within visual strata. However, I work very hard to relax and challenge the limits of my own cultural framework, surrendering whenever possible, into the imaginary. Thus, entering a realm of largely immeasurable, but ecstasy-inducing conditions."
--Melissa
