19-02-2015

OUT NOW: The Perfect Spectator, Dutch e-book

The Perfect Spectator
The Experience of the Art Work and Reception Aesthetics

by Janneke Wesseling
Published by Valiz, Book and Culture Projects
Design: Sam de Groot

What happens between a spectator and an art work? How do we experience ‘meaning’ in an art work? How can the process of interpretation be understood and articulated?
To address these questions, the author explores the field of reception aesthetics, with its central premise that the contemplation of art is a matter of interaction between the art work and the observer. The research is focused on unravelling and problematising the theoretical terminology of the interaction between art work and spectator, deriving from reception aesthetics as well as from hermeneutics and phenomenology, with the aim of building a new theoretical foundation for this terminology. Additionally, different concepts of spectatorship are extensively discussed.
‘I believe it is more productive to research how the art work works or signifies than what it shows or might signify. This ‘how’ reveals itself mainly in the performative act of experiencing the work.’
This book addresses scholars and students in the fields of art history, aesthetics and visual and cultural studies, as well as artists and art students, and all those art spectators who wish to develop a deeper understanding of the experience of art.

Dutch e-book: order now at Kobo
Later in 2015 available as English paperback book. 

06-02-2015

Culture 3.0: Prosuming the Art Academy, 27 March 2015

Culture 3.0: Prosuming the Art Academy, a seminar organized by the research group of the Lectorate Art Theory & Practice at the University of the Arts The Hague.
27 March 2015, 10:00 - 18:00 h

On this day we will look at the impact of digital culture on ‘making’ and will investigate its significance for art education. Three urgent questions will be addressed:

• How can we teach students to become prosumers?
• What are the implications of digital culture for the experience of sensuousness? And for the artistic process of making and its outcome?
• How can we teach students to develop a critical position towards Culture 3.0? What could a critical art and design practice look like in Culture 3.0?

Lectures
Robert Hewison (UK, 1943) - Creating the Creative Industries: the British experience and its challenges
Bas van Beek (NL, 1974) - The Multiple Personality Disorder of the Designer
Theo Ploeg (NL,1969) - Design(ing) (for) the New World
David Jablonowski (DE, 1982) - Stone Carving High Performance

RSVP before 13/3/2015: lectoraatktp@kabk.nl
Royal Academy of Art, Prinsessegracht 4, The Hague

For more information please visit: www.lectoraatktp.nl