Speaker
Description
This presentation critiques Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology (OOO) and its conception of art. Though OOO has gained traction in artistic and architectural circles, among other things for its anti-anthropocentric views and ecological implications, I argue that its understanding of art is inadequate. Despite its aspirations, OOO relies on inescapably human beliefs to define art, failing to adequately account for the role of the subject in aesthetic experience and the social conditions that shape it.
Drawing primarily on the philosophy of Arthur Danto, George Dickie’s institutional theory of art, and Yuriko Saito’s insights from everyday aesthetics, I propose a socially embedded, conventionalist and contextualist paradigm as a superior framework for understanding art. I argue that aesthetic experience is deeply tied to the subject’s ability to identify and interpret objects as artworks – a capacity shaped by socially embedded knowledge that OOO overlooks and even implicitly assumes.
Ultimately, this presentation makes the case for a return to the subject and the contextual conditions that shape art and aesthetic experience, arguing that these considerations are crucial for a more legitimate ontology of art today.
| Presenting author | Rūdis Bebrišs |
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