~A E S T H E T I C~ a poem blink *tiny shutter noise* save to short-term memory apply: ✓ memory ✓ emotion ✓ expectation export to mouth a lie: #nofilter
THANK YOU for this important disambiguation. "Aesthetic" in its current tumblr use has been nagging at me for a while, but I dismissed my annoyance in an attempt to not be a curmudgeon about natural language change. And here you sort it out for me, and for us all, in such a clear and thoughtful way. This new usage will no longer bother me. The internet is real, y'all. It is a real place where you can have real experiences, be they *aesthetic* or not. (I still have to use it as an adjective, however.) And thanks for the shout out, Mike.
This is going to sound so pretentious but I do have an aesthetic blog on tumblr and like you said I think the entire aesthetic trend on the internet is based on identity. It's also based on irony and absurd humor, I won't deny that, but when you reblog a picture on tumblr it is like wearing the suit. Except you don't buy the suit, it is just there on your personal page. In a way you can appreciate a traditional painting like you would appreciate the suit by wearing it, which is something you can't do in real life. You cannot enter a museum and wear your favourite painting like a suit, but you can post it on your tumblr, instagram or pinterest. When you do that you not only show your followers you like that painting, but you also show them this painting is part of my aesthetic, it is part of my identity.
I kind of disagree with some assumptions that are made here. I would argue, rather, that on the internet the term "a e s t h e t i c" signifies that something is related to, either directly or tangentially, the multimedia art movement known as Vaporwave. You'll notice that most of the images selected as examples of "aesthetic" in this video are stylistically Vaporwave (early internet digital artifacts, Roman busts, pastels, neon, etc.). Even the music used in this video is related to Vaporwave, either stylistically or generically (t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 is so important to the Vaporwave scene.) I think that to devote an entire video to the internet aesthetic without making any mention of Vaporwave is a big mistake. It is so crucial to the development of how and why people use the label "a e s t h e t i c", because not every artistically inclined image on the internet is described using such an adjective. Much like certain things can be described as "punk rock", Vaporwave's adjective of choice is "aesthetic." I sincerely hope you address this in the comment response video; as someone who is academically interested in Vaporwave as an art movement I think this video has missed some very key points contributing to the rise of the term aesthetic becoming a descriptor.
+TheHammar117 I've also seen the term aesthetic used to describe edits of other kinds than vaporwave, like for hogwarts houses and stuff (google hogwarts aesthetics)
Exactly. Couldn't agree more. I also think the prevalence of the term is just another thing the internet spawned (because of Vaporwave) and it's meaning and usage has now been co-opted by different groups. I still think it's used mostly if not somewhat ironically, by and large. Because the act of typing it out with spaces is so ridiculous and implies an unusual "voice" or tone required to read it. But that's just my 2 cents.
@@studio5317 But people were using and writing about 'the aesthetic' long before the advent of the internet. This video makes the important point that its contextual in that a few contexts come together in ones's experience of art, whether they have an 'aesthetic experience' or not.
In my opinion, aesthetic is the feeling I experience when I come across an image that is worthy of evoking said feeling. It is not simply the nostalgia, the symmetry, nor is it simply the subjective beauty I perceive. Rather, it is the amalgam of all of these things in a crescendo of feeling that is experienced through these images deemed, "aesthetic."
I know this won't probably get read, but this topic really gets me going. So, this video is obviously inspired by vaporwave - and how vaporwave is actually a brand new idea in music and in art - but especially in ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ. So, vaporwave, in essence (though not in all cases, in a majority of cases including mine own music), is taking what once had context, meaning, and placing it in a vacuum. Samples are taken from anywhere, changed and edited, and they they lost all context of what they once were/meant/were used for, which creates a really nice experiment; can you find art in vaporwave, if all it is meant to be is just sound? If it wasn't created for a real purpose, just to sound nice. It's the ultimate experiment in 'what is art?'
The understanding of aesthetic I developed is that if "my aesthetic" is an itch in my brain then the art on which I would comment "aesthetic" is something that scratched that itch. At first I also had a very negative view of people commenting aesthetic on everything until I found a post that gave me that feeling of having all the stimuli in the right places. For me, "my aesthetic" is less of a badge or style I wear on myself as a means of self identification and more of a preference in food. Probably a preference in snack food because I consume it to enjoy the experience, not to feel satisfied or full by consuming it.
I assumed it was simply a meme that developed into common internet language (similar to bump) On a side note, I feel like an amazing addition to this channel would be a 'Meme Corner' with like short videos on the philosophical and socioeconomic reasoning behind specific memes and what they mean or could mean to people. Or perhaps the cognitive aspects that make them particularly pleasing. It would be a beautiful culmination of intellectual stimulation and sh*tposting.
As the Sect I internet kid who's A E S T H E T I C comment on LORD OF 420 DEATH GRIPS/MACINTOSH PLUS recieved 2 thumbs up I find that I am one of the most well versed youtubers when it comes to the difference between A E S T H E T I C versus aesthetic. Aesthetics suffices fine in the meaning you lend to A E S T H E T I C throughout the video as the ever evolving relationship between man and art marches onward. A E S T H E T I C holds its roots in a particularly niche internet movement about embracing the demise of western society and its emptiness, coupled well with an almost worship of lazily yet perhaps brilliantly remixing old jazz. One might call it irony so self aware it becomes authentic. Tat Sec He Is; At Sec She It; At Sics Thee; Tea Sec This; Heat Sect Is; Haste Sect I; Act Theses I; Cats He Site; Ache Tests I As for the video I would say its fairly aesthetic, with a few touches of A E S T H E T I C-ism thrown in. Just not enough to define the video as such. For one you didn't rewind yourself nearly enough. I did like the giant floating head in the mirror though, or maybe that was just my monitor face looking back at me? Who cares.
The problem with this video is that it doesn't really differentiate between sincere uses of "aesthetic", even in the Tumblr sense, and ironic uses, such as the comments in videos that got posted early in this vid. The sincere version has some relation to what most of this video talks about, but there's also certain restrictions on what counts as "aesthetic". Look at the "X aesthetic" posts on Tumblr - it's mostly pastel colours or jewel tones, faded and slightly blurred, cutaways of body parts, dichromatic. You don't often see bright colours, neons (unless it's a neon sign), crayon colors, the stuff you see in advertising or children's media. The ironic use has its connections to vaporwave, as well as particular digital artists from the last few years who tried to make "Tumblr Art" that looks a certain way: glitches, lots of pink for some reason, really bright neon colors, weird juxtapositions, references to technology and art. (Hyperallergic has a series about this.) So now people are jokingly commenting on anything similarly glitchy/weird with "a e s t h e t i c" as some kind of reference to those art. The more sincere applications of "aesthetic" are kind of like a soft grunge take on vaporwave, though the fact that these artists called it "Tumblr art" made me wonder if they're actually drawing inspiration from what was popular on Tumblr during that time, thereby creating a feedback loop.
1) Great to finally see Olly here; hope he shows up again. 2) Loving this new... style ;) 3) I see this (great) high-minded speculation about the relationship between the individual and their raw experience and I think "Yes Mike, I miss your podcast, too." 4) Finally, I paused this video and watched it simultaneously with the Idea Channel episode "2 Short Ideas: Art, Distance and The Daily Show", in which you talk about your experience gaining Psychical Distance from your citrus squeezer. "In looking at it," you say, "its object-ness just sort of retreats into itself, and it becomes this insane crazy shape and not the kitchen tool that I use when I'm making cocktails. For a moment it becomes another object entirely even though it is, physically, exactly the same object. It stops being a tool, and becomes an *aesthetic thing*." You say you're not sure you're "on board" with Edward Bullough's idea that aesthetic experience requires "distance", but I was at least on board with your ability to regard your citrus squeezer (or a suit) with that kind of distance. And here, unless I'm misreading you, it sounds like you're suggesting that that distance is somehow impossible. You say that "We simply can't divorce our judgments from our historically situated experiences," and that this fact fundamentally comprises the aesthetic process. But that "can't" sounds like a strong claim made lightly. I'm just not so sure, and I worry that somehow that this strong emphasis on context gives short shrift to citrus-squeezer sorts of experiences. Can we ever drop our historically situated experiences? course not. Does that personal and historical context inform our judgments? In many (and arguably the most interesting) cases, certainly. But does that mean aesthetic value *can't* be experienced it itself? *Slightly skeptical hand wavering*. Trying to divorce our judgments from our historically situated experiences is a valuable exercise, and seems maybe more possible in music and abstract art than anywhere else. As an imperfect analogy, we all speak English, replete with historical baggage, but we've all also experienced semantic satiation, in which even words heavy with meaning become "just sounds". A veteran raver can never be someone unaware of how The Drop works in electro house music (great podcast), but in a real moment of immersion, my experience suggests even she can experience it without the benefit of, and also unburdened by, that personal and cultural context. In a way, I think that's what some psychoactive drugs are trying to do, and God help her if she's holding your citrus squeezer at the time. Anyways, how do you read Edward Bullough's idea of psychical distance in the context of this video? Would it be fair to read Dewey (or you) as countering that art need not, and indeed *cannot*, be without purpose? Does this problematize your experience of your citrus squeezer, or is that experience still culturally situated, albeit in a less obvious way?
Given a certain perspective, anything can be art. I can look at a Da Vinci painting and feel nothing but something like text reading "H E C K" overtop of some flowers or whatever and say "Yeah I get you".
I guess I don't swim in the pool where people post "aesthetic" on things, but I am very into this idea of art, and the judgement of it, being a wholly subjective thing. This is especially true for movies. Everyone has those films which everyone else won't shut up about, but which you think are over-rated caca. My latest approach to disagreements like this is to acknowledge that opinions can't be "wrong". If you feel some way about something, that's just how you feel. And your feelings are 100% yours. Your opinions can't be wrong, because they are nothing but an expression of your feelings, and should be taken as that. And no one can tell you you're wrong about them. (Of course, opinions are only about value judgements and taste, not about facts. Beliefs in wrong things are not the same as opinions that are unpopular. Science is real whether you believe it or not.)
+Jedd Cole My point is more that everyone's opinion is equally correct. Sharing an opinion with a lot of other people usually makes it feel more correct, but correctness isn't something that even applies to opinions because of their inherent subjectivity.
Something's aesthetic is the lowest-resolution internal rendering you can achieve of its qualitative effect on you without fragmenting anything deemed (by the artist or critics) vital or essential or distinctive about that thing.
I like the episode however I find the jumping off point to be a bit odd. The whole A E S T H E T I C family of comments are just a meme that spawned out of vaporwave. You clearly know this based on the thumbnail so it's just weird that it wasn't mentioned.
***** I don't recall him mentioning it by name, but I could have just missed it. While I do like that the episode was about more than a meme I don't really agree with his reading of why people leave the comments that he mentioned at the start of the episode. It always struck me as semi-ironic joking.
What I find really interesting about the Online Aesthetic Experience is that it's very semiotic. As Olly explained, the aesthetic experience has been linked by various philosophers to the context of the piece, creating a relation between ethics, politics, history, and different concepts. A good example is how Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" isn't fully appreciated outside of the context of world's history, particularly Spanish history and fascism; or how the modern art movement is a response to classical art and stuff like Duchamp's work can't be fully understood without this context. But Online this isn't the case. Most " A E S T H E T I C" blogs and comments don't try and don't even want to make a social comment about their context, they're expressing just an appeal towards certain images, colors and shapes and building a college of stuff that they identify with. But here's where I think it gets really interesting... they literally identify with this colors and shapes, in a way that these collages become avatars of them. But not only avatars of style, but in a way, of their personality. Without making it conscious or explicit, aesthetic bloggers express thru these colleges a semiotic that can be translated into moods, attitude, even political inclinations, but not because they are reblogging political images, but because they are reblogging images that thru a semiotic analisis reveal symbolism related to different ideologies. P.D.: Guys get someone to do the subtitles of your show, my dad is a philosopher and an expert on Fenomenology and Merleau-Ponty but since you don't have subtitles in spanish I couldn't show him the Deadpool video (actually he works a lot with aesthetic too)
My ambivalence about this is why, sometimes at the art museum, I will intentionally not read the description or learn who the artist is before thoroughly investigating the image or sculpture. My goal is to decide whether I like or am emotionally moved by the art "untainted" by historical context, and personal biases. I've softened up on this, however, because at least to me, some works are uninteresting or "ugly" to me without context, but moving and beautiful knowing who the artist was and some of where he or she was coming from. The work of Jacob Lawrence comes to mind; like me, you may not like some of the more vibrant color choices, or weird loose use of line, but put his paintings into the context of a black painter in the early part of the century, and you may start to realize a Jazzy sensibility that makes his art a lot more fun. Ultimately, both need to be in a good art critic's toolbox. Lean too much on "aesthetic value" and you'll reject any art that's not immediately accessible to you, but lean too much on "artistic value" and you won't be able to think for yourself.
"...while not everything is art, anything can be appreciated *as* art." For years, I've always defined art as propositional. That is, anything can be art as soon as you propose it to be, and as soon as someone - anyone - proposes a thing to be art, it is art. It doesn't mean it's *good* art, but it's art. I think your wording is good, and helpful, and even clearer. Thanks.
+Sm ramgator It was noticed by "normies" like 3 years ago There were numerous articles about it in many mainstream news publications and there was even a short lived fad where pop stars were incorporating the look and feeling of it into their stuff, this has already faded and most have moved on to the next nano-trend.
Kandi Gloss I noticed that, and I'm hoping that's true, because 1) it doesn't seem like it caught on too tightly with the general populace and 2) having people reference it without the correct context and attitude would be ironic and tragic
When someone goes to Tokyo, Hong Kong etc, and specifically seeks out malls and shopping streets stuck in the 80s and 90s - in lieu of the usual sights...that's an 'aesthetic experience' in my book. Viva la vida - Vaporwave!
I like the idea that we're all in Deadpool's head. That absolves me of all responsibility for my life. It's OK, this is what Deadpool thinks I should be doing.
I assume that someone else has already commented on this, but some element of or commentary on irony and reflexivity is implicit in most uses for the term "this is my aesthetic" and variants thereof. These are things that should not be aesthetically pleasing in a traditional sense, and owning the contradiction and bathos inherent in aesthetically appreciating something "tacky" or "ridiculous," whether in a humorous way or a genuine one or, more often than not, on both levels, is key to how the term is used. It is acknowledging and embracing absurdity through using a "highbrow" word for an elevated appreciation of something ostensibly "lowbrow."
+ConvincingPeople I find the ideas of "highbrow" and "lowbrow" inherently classist - things considered "highbrow" typically require the background experience of a wealthy/white-collar upbringing to enjoy while things considered "lowbrow" typically appeal to those with a working class background rather than any objective consistent criteria. Thus the use of "aesthetic" by people from white-collar/educated background to announce the fact that they are indeed white-collar/educated despite the fact that they like something typically liked by working class people.
Agilemind Ehhhh... for one thing, I put those words in quotes for a reason. For another, while there is an element of snobbery to the terms that is self-evident, terming it "classist" in all instances is reductive and shallow. When people refer to "lowbrow humour," for instance, the implication is less "this appeals to working class aesthetics and is therefore below me," but rather "this is crude and requires little thought and is therefore below me." Which is insulting to people who enjoy such humour, who may be perfectly intelligent and morally upstanding individuals, but it isn't implicitly putting them down on some socioeconomic basis. Now, is there a frequent equation in our culture of a lack of wealth with a lack of education and a lack of education with a lack of intelligence? Yes. But is that what I was talking about? No. But it is related, in a roundabout way. To my mind, saying that a weird or out-of-left-field thing is "my aesthetic" can be a way of poking a hole in the notion of Capital-A Art while still embracing the possibility of the experience at the heart of the concept by positing that it can be found in literally anything if you look for it. It is both exposing the idea of these categories as absurd and elevating the absurd itself to their place-a kind of neo-Dada thing, if you will, particularly if you take things like vaporwave as a revival of Surrealist ideas about collage, reclamation of the mundane and the revolutionary power of the unfiltered psyche. Incidentally, a lot of modern nostalgie de la boue conceptual collage stuff originally associated with the "aesthetic" meme )and particularly the faux-Japanese text variant) has the same sort of underlying left-wing subversive sentiment that the Surrealists consciously cultivated in their work, so the whole "'aesthetic' is classist" thing is reaching at best and just baffling at worst. Which is to say, your attempts at Internet Age Marxism are so very much my aesthetic.
Yeah I didn't mean to imply you or anyone else using the highbrow/lowbrow thing is trying to be classist. More that the reason lowbrow stuff is looked down upon is because society/the Art establishment is classist. Internet culture seems to be dominated by the young university-educated class, but because of the anonymity of the internet people are able to engage with things they wouldn't do in 'regular' society (for instance the Bronies), including so-called lowbrow art. I think it is that mix that has generated the popularity of "aesthetic".
Agilemind Now, that is fairer, I think. Openly indulging in subcultural stuff is much easier now that communication has become so wide-reaching and the degree of anonymity involved has made the fear of ridicule and societal censure less of an issue. But ultimately, I think that this fearlessness is beginning to effect changes outside of such closed circles of anonymous enthusiasts. Knowing that there are people like you everywhere means that the sort of collective stigma associated with identifying with things outside of your assigned box-the strong arm of hegemony, if you want to go the full Gramsci-has less power. Outside of basic internet access, privilege and class status means less, in some cases means nothing. Sure, the Internet can also bring together the worst of humanity, but it is also the great leveller. "Aesthetic," to me, is part of that grand demolition of "upstairs/downstairs" ideas about the world because it makes a mockery of all of it. Everything is ripe for both ridicule and unironic admiration. Everything is stupid, awesome, stupidly awesome and awesomely stupid.
"Everything can be appreciated as art." That was a good way to conclude. People who aren't particularly into art over other things think that art is only what is pleasing to see in a museum. However, I've come to the conclusion that art either does not exist, or everything is art. In a sense, both are correct at the same time.
Mike as well as John Koenig are some of the people I'd most like to have a coffee or a beer with and just talk for an afternoon about philosophy and/or just stuff :)
I did my Senior Thesis for my BFA in Graphics Design on this exact thing. well not the Tumbler "A E S T H E T I C" but on what makes art and why people enjoy different types of art. Wish I had my research handy. It wasn't fully scientific and skewed to a younger generation, due to my lack of resources, But the verdict I came to is exactly what you talk about, the "Art" is the experience with something. the younger generation have a hard time Experiencing old static works, and the older generation don't have the context to Experience newer stranger works. I went about trying (do varying degrees of success and failure) to use Interactive design to help people experience different works starting with the easy to Experience (mostly Interactive and gripping works) and use what people learned from those experiences to help them makes steps to experience harder to understand Works. and finally helping them to see that the Experience is the where the Art happens and if you approach any piece of art with the mind set of wanting to Experience it the same way you would an Interactive Installation piece (if only in your Mind) you'll be able to understand it a bit more. it was a fascinating project, that just started with the question "why don't some of my peers enjoy art as much as I do?"
"Aesthetic" to me has come to define a particular aesthetic when used in certain contexts. An A E S T H E T I C aeshetic, so to speak. (It's a kind of vaporwavy style)
This idea that the history and physical presence of an object contributes to the value and aesthetic reminds me of the discussion of "historicity" in The Man in the High Castle specifically the argument against it by an illegal counterfeiter "It's all a big racket; they're playing it on themselves. I mean, a gun goes through a famous battle, like the Meuse-Argonne, and it's the same as if it hadn't, unless you know. It's in here.' He tapped his head. 'In the mind, not the gun."
As a first-time commenter, I'm probably going to butcher his actual arguments horribly, but while watching the episode, I couldn't help think of Alexander Nehamas' thesis on beauty. In short, Nehamas' thoughts on aesthetic are that it is akin to a kind of friendship - or even love- with the object one finds beautiful/enticing/intriguing/worthwhile: we hope that "if that thing or person were a part of my life, it would make it more worthwhile," he says. (Perhaps taking Wittgenstein to the next level and making it matter to who we are as people.) Beauty is a "promise of happiness" Nehamas says- but ONLY a promise, because no one can be ever fully subsumed by the object of their affection, be it a painting, a TV show, a meme or a lover. What opens in between the artwork and the admirer is a conversation. We develop a relationship with the object of aesthetic- we return to it, we are changed by it, we bring different parts of ourselves to it over time and it reveals different parts of itself as we engage more with it. We wish to introduce the object/person to others and, in turn, develop shared experiences with others who engage with the object/person. Investigating and entering into the conversation with the object of beauty introduces us to /other/ works of art that have influenced the primary object of affection. With this frame, another way to approach the episode would be to ask: Can friendship exist and form on the internet, and if so- how and to what extent? With the rise of social media not only for sustaining friendships but starting friendships and romantic relationships, it seems fitting that the idea of "A E S T H E T I C" has grown in many of those same spaces. If Nehamas is onto something, what does that say about our "A E S T H E T I C" and does it mean its any less real if it remains purely online? I'm tempted to say no- a person who has never gone to the Grand Canyon can appreciate a picture of it in the same way as the person who took the picture and online-only relationships can be as intimate as those of old friends. However, there's also a really understandable and compelling drive, it seems, to bring some parts of one's online aesthetic to the meatspace- to try to replicate crafts seen on pinterest, or host fandom meetups or even cosplay as a means of trying to engage as closely as possible IRL with one's most cherished artworks.
When asked what art is, Picasso pointed to a leather bicycle seat and handlebars hung on his wall in the shape of a bull's head, and said, "What isn't." Your final words reminded me of this. :)
This is actually one of the best UA-cam videos I've watched in a while, and helps describe how I've long thought about Art. I've often heard people saying art is something that's created by an artist, And even sometimes stating that the intentional creation is part of what makes something art, That something made by unknowing natural forces, or simply by a human unintentionally, is not art (See for example the Big Joel video "The Art of Losing", Where he says basically that), But to me, Art, If its created at all, Is created by its observer, the one experiencing it, Simply by experiencing it as art. Since artistic value is all in a person, so too is something's status _as_ art, so anything _can be_ art if someone experiences it as that, but nothing is _inherently_ art, because nothing is inherently experienced, let alone done so as art. This does mean that, yes, the same thing can be art to one person and not art to another person, which I'd say is why there's often arguments that paint splattered on a canvas, or a blank white canvas, or a banana taped to a wall, aren't art; The people saying that don't just _believe_ that it's not art, to them, it _isn't_ art, but that doesn't mean that it's inherently not art, Because to somebody, it can be, and is, art.
Did your language and/or articulation in this video change because you were seated, was that to get the right aesthetic or am I imagining things? Your voice seemed somehow calmer than in most episodes. In a certain weird way I can't really describe better "more sophisticated" but "less excited".
Almost like we are being invited to a cult.... The whole vid is aesthetic, if you come to think of it: his shirt, the background, the frame used for all the media, and yes, his speech manner. I find it classy IMO
To say that aesthetics cannot be conveyed on a screen is discounting all of photography as art. Yes, seeing an object in the physical realm is a certain experience but a photograph of an object, place, or person is a different beast. That's why it can be so difficult to capture the beauty of a sculpture in a photo. It can require several images and still dwarf the beauty of being next to it or experiencing it hapticly. The photo itself has to be its own unique artwork in a sense
I think art and culture need this nebulous spectrum of what defines art and aesthetic experience to allow for the most progressive innovations and, therefore, cultural discourse. Of course this ubiquity also means giving consideration to what might seem ‘meaningless’ or ‘unartistic’ but, without that consideration, something brilliant, and therefore culturally beneficial, might be overlooked or dismissed.
so so similar to the idea of closure Scott McCloud discusses in Understanding Comics, no? couldn't help think of the way McCloud talks about the way that each person will turn the juxtaposed images into a completed narrative in an individual way guided by their sociocultural background and experiences with other media texts, but that this process can also he guided and mediated by the artist. the final narrative being a mix of our own reading guided and influenced by the artist and writer. can see so many parallels between this and McCloud's closure, and perhaps closure can even expand the concept of aesthetic
i don't even have that much to say about this video except for the fact that i love it "while not everything is art, everything can be appreciated as art" is my aesthetic hahah
Interestingly enough, my kyudo (Japanese archery) manual written in 1953 uses aesthetic in a similar fashion. Kyudo, compared to Western archery, has stayed deliberately inconvenient with one of the longest longbows to date, a slow and tedious process of footwork and form, and in the end it hardly even matters if your arrow hits the center of the target. Throughout the manual it says the reason for every little strange detail is for aesthetic value. The asymmetrical longbow is meant to represent male and female, and there are a number of right angles present in your body while shooting (if you're doing it right). All of this was retained over kyudo's long history because its meant to be a sport of beauty, perfection and aesthetic rather than competition.
I kind of agree with you -- beauty doesn't exist for itself, it exists because we experience it. In this way you may say that beauty exists as the experience of itself, and this experience can differ from person to person. Great video as always!
This is exactly... My buddy and I have considered what we value in art as artists, as being divided between 3 different spectrums. 1 the "aesthetic" spectrum, form, what things look/sound like, source Scott McCloud's spectrum of style in Understanding comics. 2 What is the known intention behind it, a spectrum of intention, basically your context for viewing or experiencing the work, (is it marketable, is it communicating, is it representational, is the form/meaning unintentional or intentional) source being the Japanese concept of Heta-Uma, - things that look bad can also feel nice. 3 is what the Art achieves. Which, I suppose is what the viewer does with the work, or how they react. When you say they "like, share, take, catalog" It can also be about how they take that work of art and use it in their lives. People endlessly referencing a comedy album, or how Duckie from Pretty In Pink can make someone a more compassionate person, etc. Also within a society, what purpose does that art achieve, being separated from it's original intention. This is a driving perspective with how I think and talk about art. Thanks.
Ethan Merrill The joke relies on stepping outside of the standard two sides of the debate and taking a pronunciation that no-one seriously supports. "jiff" is what "soft g" meant; if I wrote out the difference as "gif vs jif" that would be biased in favour of one side. Worse yet, the objectively wrong side.
It's funny because ideas similar to these have arisen independently of one-another. TV Tropes deals extensively with fan-theory and what defines "canon" and "fanon". Basically it's artistic intent and art theory concepts in a less snooty context. A person may dislike, say, the character Princess Celestia in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, because of the popular fan theory that Celestia is a tyrannical troll, regardless of clues to this characterization being largely absent to the show. This is somewhat similar to disliking Picasso paintings because of his womanizing; not in the text.
Didn't see these comments for some reason, but to explain for people that didn't understand: watch the video first. They circle around this idea in the video and talk about people using the word without understanding it fully or perhaps being hipsters. I was commenting on both the backlash to people overusing it / using it incorrectly and on the people overusing it / using it incorrectly themselves. I thought my comment encapsulated this, but I was being subtle-which doesn't translate well into text.
that A-frame tho. (@ 8:23) ...i spent the whole video thinking about Data telling Jenna, "You are as aesthetically pleasing as the day we met." Yup. Star Trek is in EVERYTHING.
I really enjoyed this video. Also really enjoyed hearing Mike talk at a slower pace. It reminds me of how he talks in his podcasts. Not that I don't like the faster videos, but I find the slower pace calming in a way? Either way, great work.
Tumblr weirdo here. This video actually touches on something pretty personal to me. I have bpd and, for me, that means having identity issues is a part of everyday life (basically every single day). I often find it hard to keep a firm grip on...who I am. And one of the ways I cope is by posting "aesthetic" posts. My aesthetic tag isn't filled with ipads in bathtubs, this is more than a meme to me. I guess you could say it's self expression, but it seems like more than that in my case. What I do isn't just expression, it's...preservation? construction? It's an expression of my personality and also maintenance of the personality. These posts often act as an anchor when I get lost in my own head. So basically, I've found the whole ~aesthetic~ thing to be a pretty handy tool.
I took the idea of how people use aesthetic to not have so much of an artistic meaning but more so as a way to use pictures or concepts as adjectives. Like when people tend to have an image that they refer to as "their aesthetic" it seems more so to be using that image to describe themselves, taking the artistic qualities not for the purpose of saying it is art but using them as a way to describe a thing. Like turning the expression "a picture is worth a thousand words" into a universal adjective.
I love the way the word aesthetic has come to change in the way it has, I love how it adds weight to the idea that, as you said, anything can be art if it is seen that way. I see plenty of grumbling people looking at pieces that sold for millions and say 'that isn't art' as though they COULD have done it, but they did not. I cherish the idea that we can find meaning and beauty in anything, that we can connect in a special way to a thing. I have always felt that there is nothing wrong there, there need not be an exclusivity to what is aesthetic or what is art. To find beauty and artistry in the every day is one of life's treasures.
This was so fun to work on! Thanks Mike and Morgan and all the crew!
+Philosophy Tube Thanks yourself, dude! See you 'round the internet water cooler.
I saw your's and Mike's videos in my subbox together and thought it was coincidence, but this is better!
+Philosophy Tube You're great but your mouth is so small
It gets the job done though.
Cool idea! Reminds me of Idea Channel's video on 'Literally Me.'
That shirt and the way he's talking makes me think Mike is trying to recruit me into a cult
+Lucas Roote Join us. *wears grey shirt*
+PBS Idea Channel It's a really good shirt. You wear a lot of good shirts.
+PBS Idea Channel but is it a grey industrys shirt?
+Lucas Roote At least he isnt bald... or crazy... right?
+Lucas Roote ONE OF US. ONE OF US.
This is one of those videos you need to watch 5 times before absorbing even half the information.
it dont make sense
~A E S T H E T I C~
a poem
blink
*tiny shutter noise*
save to short-term memory
apply:
✓ memory
✓ emotion
✓ expectation
export to mouth
a lie: #nofilter
THANK YOU for this important disambiguation. "Aesthetic" in its current tumblr use has been nagging at me for a while, but I dismissed my annoyance in an attempt to not be a curmudgeon about natural language change. And here you sort it out for me, and for us all, in such a clear and thoughtful way. This new usage will no longer bother me. The internet is real, y'all. It is a real place where you can have real experiences, be they *aesthetic* or not. (I still have to use it as an adjective, however.) And thanks for the shout out, Mike.
This is going to sound so pretentious but I do have an aesthetic blog on tumblr and like you said I think the entire aesthetic trend on the internet is based on identity. It's also based on irony and absurd humor, I won't deny that, but when you reblog a picture on tumblr it is like wearing the suit. Except you don't buy the suit, it is just there on your personal page. In a way you can appreciate a traditional painting like you would appreciate the suit by wearing it, which is something you can't do in real life. You cannot enter a museum and wear your favourite painting like a suit, but you can post it on your tumblr, instagram or pinterest. When you do that you not only show your followers you like that painting, but you also show them this painting is part of my aesthetic, it is part of my identity.
I kind of disagree with some assumptions that are made here. I would argue, rather, that on the internet the term "a e s t h e t i c" signifies that something is related to, either directly or tangentially, the multimedia art movement known as Vaporwave. You'll notice that most of the images selected as examples of "aesthetic" in this video are stylistically Vaporwave (early internet digital artifacts, Roman busts, pastels, neon, etc.). Even the music used in this video is related to Vaporwave, either stylistically or generically (t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 is so important to the Vaporwave scene.) I think that to devote an entire video to the internet aesthetic without making any mention of Vaporwave is a big mistake. It is so crucial to the development of how and why people use the label "a e s t h e t i c", because not every artistically inclined image on the internet is described using such an adjective. Much like certain things can be described as "punk rock", Vaporwave's adjective of choice is "aesthetic." I sincerely hope you address this in the comment response video; as someone who is academically interested in Vaporwave as an art movement I think this video has missed some very key points contributing to the rise of the term aesthetic becoming a descriptor.
+TheHammar117 What is vaporwave? I know I can just google it but you seem to know about it so I care about your opinion.
+TheHammar117 I've also seen the term aesthetic used to describe edits of other kinds than vaporwave, like for hogwarts houses and stuff (google hogwarts aesthetics)
Exactly. Couldn't agree more. I also think the prevalence of the term is just another thing the internet spawned (because of Vaporwave) and it's meaning and usage has now been co-opted by different groups. I still think it's used mostly if not somewhat ironically, by and large. Because the act of typing it out with spaces is so ridiculous and implies an unusual "voice" or tone required to read it. But that's just my 2 cents.
@@studio5317 But people were using and writing about 'the aesthetic' long before the advent of the internet. This video makes the important point that its contextual in that a few contexts come together in ones's experience of art, whether they have an 'aesthetic experience' or not.
they only known the word "aesthetics" because of vaporwave.
me: pathetic
p.s. i like vaporwave and lofi but this is dumb af. haha
shoutout FrankJavCee
I T S A L L I N Y O U R H E A D
Shoutout Anthony Fantano
カユタハタヤマナヨマはマラよ
A S S D E A D D I C K S
"Japan should take the islands" aesthetic
OOF
And here I always thought that a e s t h e t i c was a vaporwave thing
+Khandnalie _E X P A N D Y O U R E X P E R I E N C E_
+Khandnalie I didn't think that, but now i'm not so sure that it isnt.
That's cause it is. It's also slightly related to "s a d b o y s". Take it from me, I'm a maymay expert.
Btw, video finishes without them mentioning vaporwave even once
Wtf
im sorry did he say JIFE
Yes
How better to keep neutral in the gif/jif world?
+EbyKat
Why try to be neutral when the creator explicitly said it's pronounced "jif"?
This is hilarious because I just came from a video he made on gif/jif pronunciation. would recommend watching angry UA-cam comments section
jife is his aesthetic
I never thought a show on PBS would be explaining the art style of vaporwave.
God bless america.
nice
+Artzie Music ;)
+Artzie Music aw snap it's artzie
subbed
of course you're here
wassup dude
There's a mellowness to this video I was not ready for. LOL.
Olly!!!
Olly!!!
Olly!!!
+MonitoMR Olly!!!
+NerdSync Olly???
Olly!!!
Hey Mike, long time watcher first time commenter. I say aesthetic a lot mostly as a new way to say... "cool" or "da beez knees" gr8 vid m8 r8 8/8
You're very aesthetic Frank. Please let me have your old VHS tapes, I'll change the diapers I promise.
great aesthetic tutorial
+FrankJavCee my brother literally thinks you invented the word, or at least coined it
+FrankJavCee I knew you'd be watching.
I knew, and I mean I *knew* FrankJavCee would comment on this video.
Aesthetic as fuark brah
Yasssssssss
In my opinion, aesthetic is the feeling I experience when I come across an image that is worthy of evoking said feeling. It is not simply the nostalgia, the symmetry, nor is it simply the subjective beauty I perceive. Rather, it is the amalgam of all of these things in a crescendo of feeling that is experienced through these images deemed, "aesthetic."
I love how the backing tracks are Vaporwave
+Nikolaj Lepka god, I fucking love that, haha. Makes for a great touch.
Ow, my brain. I should watch this again later. Too many smart things.
I know this won't probably get read, but this topic really gets me going.
So, this video is obviously inspired by vaporwave - and how vaporwave is actually a brand new idea in music and in art - but especially in ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ.
So, vaporwave, in essence (though not in all cases, in a majority of cases including mine own music), is taking what once had context, meaning, and placing it in a vacuum.
Samples are taken from anywhere, changed and edited, and they they lost all context of what they once were/meant/were used for, which creates a really nice experiment; can you find art in vaporwave, if all it is meant to be is just sound? If it wasn't created for a real purpose, just to sound nice.
It's the ultimate experiment in 'what is art?'
Your pronunciation of GIF is ...interesting.
I was looking for this comment. I've never heard anyone else pronounce it the way he does
It's to prevent arguments over how GIF is pronounced
The understanding of aesthetic I developed is that if "my aesthetic" is an itch in my brain then the art on which I would comment "aesthetic" is something that scratched that itch. At first I also had a very negative view of people commenting aesthetic on everything until I found a post that gave me that feeling of having all the stimuli in the right places. For me, "my aesthetic" is less of a badge or style I wear on myself as a means of self identification and more of a preference in food. Probably a preference in snack food because I consume it to enjoy the experience, not to feel satisfied or full by consuming it.
I assumed it was simply a meme that developed into common internet language (similar to bump)
On a side note, I feel like an amazing addition to this channel would be a 'Meme Corner' with like short videos on the philosophical and socioeconomic reasoning behind specific memes and what they mean or could mean to people. Or perhaps the cognitive aspects that make them particularly pleasing. It would be a beautiful culmination of intellectual stimulation and sh*tposting.
ｉｔ＇ｓ ｊｕｓｔ ａ ｖａｐｏｒｗａｖｅ ｔｈｉｎｇ
~ #ｊｕｓｔｖａｐｏｒｗａｖｅｔｈｉｎｇｓ
#ｊｕｓｔｖａｐｏｒｗａｖｅｔｈｉｎｇｓ
ｎｏ ｉｔ＇ｓ ｎｏｔ
A E S T H E T I C S
As the Sect I internet kid who's A E S T H E T I C comment on LORD OF 420 DEATH GRIPS/MACINTOSH PLUS recieved 2 thumbs up I find that I am one of the most well versed youtubers when it comes to the difference between A E S T H E T I C versus aesthetic.
Aesthetics suffices fine in the meaning you lend to A E S T H E T I C throughout the video as the ever evolving relationship between man and art marches onward.
A E S T H E T I C holds its roots in a particularly niche internet movement about embracing the demise of western society and its emptiness, coupled well with an almost worship of lazily yet perhaps brilliantly remixing old jazz. One might call it irony so self aware it becomes authentic.
Tat Sec He Is; At Sec She It; At Sics Thee; Tea Sec This; Heat Sect Is; Haste Sect I; Act Theses I; Cats He Site; Ache Tests I
As for the video I would say its fairly aesthetic, with a few touches of A E S T H E T I C-ism thrown in. Just not enough to define the video as such. For one you didn't rewind yourself nearly enough. I did like the giant floating head in the mirror though, or maybe that was just my monitor face looking back at me? Who cares.
Jife? *_JIFE?_*
this is getting out of hand
everybody knows it's pronounced *_GIFE_*
The problem with this video is that it doesn't really differentiate between sincere uses of "aesthetic", even in the Tumblr sense, and ironic uses, such as the comments in videos that got posted early in this vid.
The sincere version has some relation to what most of this video talks about, but there's also certain restrictions on what counts as "aesthetic". Look at the "X aesthetic" posts on Tumblr - it's mostly pastel colours or jewel tones, faded and slightly blurred, cutaways of body parts, dichromatic. You don't often see bright colours, neons (unless it's a neon sign), crayon colors, the stuff you see in advertising or children's media.
The ironic use has its connections to vaporwave, as well as particular digital artists from the last few years who tried to make "Tumblr Art" that looks a certain way: glitches, lots of pink for some reason, really bright neon colors, weird juxtapositions, references to technology and art. (Hyperallergic has a series about this.) So now people are jokingly commenting on anything similarly glitchy/weird with "a e s t h e t i c" as some kind of reference to those art.
The more sincere applications of "aesthetic" are kind of like a soft grunge take on vaporwave, though the fact that these artists called it "Tumblr art" made me wonder if they're actually drawing inspiration from what was popular on Tumblr during that time, thereby creating a feedback loop.
1) Great to finally see Olly here; hope he shows up again.
2) Loving this new... style ;)
3) I see this (great) high-minded speculation about the relationship between the individual and their raw experience and I think "Yes Mike, I miss your podcast, too."
4) Finally, I paused this video and watched it simultaneously with the Idea Channel episode "2 Short Ideas: Art, Distance and The Daily Show", in which you talk about your experience gaining Psychical Distance from your citrus squeezer.
"In looking at it," you say, "its object-ness just sort of retreats into itself, and it becomes this insane crazy shape and not the kitchen tool that I use when I'm making cocktails. For a moment it becomes another object entirely even though it is, physically, exactly the same object. It stops being a tool, and becomes an *aesthetic thing*."
You say you're not sure you're "on board" with Edward Bullough's idea that aesthetic experience requires "distance", but I was at least on board with your ability to regard your citrus squeezer (or a suit) with that kind of distance. And here, unless I'm misreading you, it sounds like you're suggesting that that distance is somehow impossible. You say that "We simply can't divorce our judgments from our historically situated experiences," and that this fact fundamentally comprises the aesthetic process. But that "can't" sounds like a strong claim made lightly.
I'm just not so sure, and I worry that somehow that this strong emphasis on context gives short shrift to citrus-squeezer sorts of experiences. Can we ever drop our historically situated experiences? course not. Does that personal and historical context inform our judgments? In many (and arguably the most interesting) cases, certainly. But does that mean aesthetic value *can't* be experienced it itself? *Slightly skeptical hand wavering*. Trying to divorce our judgments from our historically situated experiences is a valuable exercise, and seems maybe more possible in music and abstract art than anywhere else. As an imperfect analogy, we all speak English, replete with historical baggage, but we've all also experienced semantic satiation, in which even words heavy with meaning become "just sounds". A veteran raver can never be someone unaware of how The Drop works in electro house music (great podcast), but in a real moment of immersion, my experience suggests even she can experience it without the benefit of, and also unburdened by, that personal and cultural context. In a way, I think that's what some psychoactive drugs are trying to do, and God help her if she's holding your citrus squeezer at the time.
Anyways, how do you read Edward Bullough's idea of psychical distance in the context of this video? Would it be fair to read Dewey (or you) as countering that art need not, and indeed *cannot*, be without purpose? Does this problematize your experience of your citrus squeezer, or is that experience still culturally situated, albeit in a less obvious way?
This is the most aesthetic video I've ever watched.
This guy was like "All the kids are on about this A E S T H E T I C so I gotta teach'em what it means."
Given a certain perspective, anything can be art. I can look at a Da Vinci painting and feel nothing but something like text reading "H E C K" overtop of some flowers or whatever and say "Yeah I get you".
The way Mike read that Urban Dictionary definition of "aesthetic" is my aesthetic. 2:16
I guess I don't swim in the pool where people post "aesthetic" on things, but I am very into this idea of art, and the judgement of it, being a wholly subjective thing. This is especially true for movies. Everyone has those films which everyone else won't shut up about, but which you think are over-rated caca. My latest approach to disagreements like this is to acknowledge that opinions can't be "wrong". If you feel some way about something, that's just how you feel. And your feelings are 100% yours. Your opinions can't be wrong, because they are nothing but an expression of your feelings, and should be taken as that. And no one can tell you you're wrong about them.
(Of course, opinions are only about value judgements and taste, not about facts. Beliefs in wrong things are not the same as opinions that are unpopular. Science is real whether you believe it or not.)
+Jedd Cole My point is more that everyone's opinion is equally correct. Sharing an opinion with a lot of other people usually makes it feel more correct, but correctness isn't something that even applies to opinions because of their inherent subjectivity.
Something's aesthetic is the lowest-resolution internal rendering you can achieve of its qualitative effect on you without fragmenting anything deemed (by the artist or critics) vital or essential or distinctive about that thing.
I like the episode however I find the jumping off point to be a bit odd. The whole A E S T H E T I C family of comments are just a meme that spawned out of vaporwave. You clearly know this based on the thumbnail so it's just weird that it wasn't mentioned.
+Benjamin Allen He acknowledges it early on and slips in references throughout the video but the conversation is bigger than that dumb meme.
***** I don't recall him mentioning it by name, but I could have just missed it.
While I do like that the episode was about more than a meme I don't really agree with his reading of why people leave the comments that he mentioned at the start of the episode. It always struck me as semi-ironic joking.
V A P O R W A V E I S D E A D
L O N G L I V E V A P O R W A V E
What I find really interesting about the Online Aesthetic Experience is that it's very semiotic. As Olly explained, the aesthetic experience has been linked by various philosophers to the context of the piece, creating a relation between ethics, politics, history, and different concepts. A good example is how Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" isn't fully appreciated outside of the context of world's history, particularly Spanish history and fascism; or how the modern art movement is a response to classical art and stuff like Duchamp's work can't be fully understood without this context. But Online this isn't the case. Most " A E S T H E T I C" blogs and comments don't try and don't even want to make a social comment about their context, they're expressing just an appeal towards certain images, colors and shapes and building a college of stuff that they identify with. But here's where I think it gets really interesting... they literally identify with this colors and shapes, in a way that these collages become avatars of them. But not only avatars of style, but in a way, of their personality. Without making it conscious or explicit, aesthetic bloggers express thru these colleges a semiotic that can be translated into moods, attitude, even political inclinations, but not because they are reblogging political images, but because they are reblogging images that thru a semiotic analisis reveal symbolism related to different ideologies.
P.D.: Guys get someone to do the subtitles of your show, my dad is a philosopher and an expert on Fenomenology and Merleau-Ponty but since you don't have subtitles in spanish I couldn't show him the Deadpool video (actually he works a lot with aesthetic too)
Ｄ Ｏ Ｙ Ｏ Ｕ Ｅ Ｖ Ｅ Ｎ Ｖ Ａ Ｐ Ｅ
+Valkyrie Fandango the hardest part about vaping is telling your parents that you're gay.
+Omap I like comments like yours even less than I do this meme trend.
n-no u
My ambivalence about this is why, sometimes at the art museum, I will intentionally not read the description or learn who the artist is before thoroughly investigating the image or sculpture. My goal is to decide whether I like or am emotionally moved by the art "untainted" by historical context, and personal biases. I've softened up on this, however, because at least to me, some works are uninteresting or "ugly" to me without context, but moving and beautiful knowing who the artist was and some of where he or she was coming from. The work of Jacob Lawrence comes to mind; like me, you may not like some of the more vibrant color choices, or weird loose use of line, but put his paintings into the context of a black painter in the early part of the century, and you may start to realize a Jazzy sensibility that makes his art a lot more fun. Ultimately, both need to be in a good art critic's toolbox. Lean too much on "aesthetic value" and you'll reject any art that's not immediately accessible to you, but lean too much on "artistic value" and you won't be able to think for yourself.
I've been rewatching older Idea Channel videos and was surprised to see Abigail show up here
A
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T
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"...while not everything is art, anything can be appreciated *as* art."
For years, I've always defined art as propositional. That is, anything can be art as soon as you propose it to be, and as soon as someone - anyone - proposes a thing to be art, it is art. It doesn't mean it's *good* art, but it's art.
I think your wording is good, and helpful, and even clearer. Thanks.
tfw vaporwave is getting noticed by normies
Honestly 😒
tfw nothing you enjoy can stay obscure
+Sm ramgator implying vapourwave was ever underground or at all unknown.
+Sm ramgator It was noticed by "normies" like 3 years ago There were numerous articles about it in many mainstream news publications and there was even a short lived fad where pop stars were incorporating the look and feeling of it into their stuff, this has already faded and most have moved on to the next nano-trend.
Kandi Gloss I noticed that, and I'm hoping that's true, because 1) it doesn't seem like it caught on too tightly with the general populace and 2) having people reference it without the correct context and attitude would be ironic and tragic
AAAH, just yesterday I was thinking, I wonder why PBS Idea Channel never did a collab with Philosophy Tube? And now it's here!
Superpowers confirmed.
*V A P O R W A V E*
*A*
*P*
*O*
*R*
*W*
*A*
*V*
*E*
Stop
Now
When someone goes to Tokyo, Hong Kong etc, and specifically seeks out malls and shopping streets stuck in the 80s and 90s - in lieu of the usual sights...that's an 'aesthetic experience' in my book. Viva la vida - Vaporwave!
0/10 not enough vaporwave and kanji.
asking "What is ~A E S TH E T I C~ is SOOOOOOO AESTHETIC
There's also an ironic side to this. It's making fun of things that have little artistic value.
I like the idea that we're all in Deadpool's head. That absolves me of all responsibility for my life. It's OK, this is what Deadpool thinks I should be doing.
I assume that someone else has already commented on this, but some element of or commentary on irony and reflexivity is implicit in most uses for the term "this is my aesthetic" and variants thereof. These are things that should not be aesthetically pleasing in a traditional sense, and owning the contradiction and bathos inherent in aesthetically appreciating something "tacky" or "ridiculous," whether in a humorous way or a genuine one or, more often than not, on both levels, is key to how the term is used. It is acknowledging and embracing absurdity through using a "highbrow" word for an elevated appreciation of something ostensibly "lowbrow."
+ConvincingPeople I find the ideas of "highbrow" and "lowbrow" inherently classist - things considered "highbrow" typically require the background experience of a wealthy/white-collar upbringing to enjoy while things considered "lowbrow" typically appeal to those with a working class background rather than any objective consistent criteria. Thus the use of "aesthetic" by people from white-collar/educated background to announce the fact that they are indeed white-collar/educated despite the fact that they like something typically liked by working class people.
Agilemind Ehhhh... for one thing, I put those words in quotes for a reason. For another, while there is an element of snobbery to the terms that is self-evident, terming it "classist" in all instances is reductive and shallow. When people refer to "lowbrow humour," for instance, the implication is less "this appeals to working class aesthetics and is therefore below me," but rather "this is crude and requires little thought and is therefore below me." Which is insulting to people who enjoy such humour, who may be perfectly intelligent and morally upstanding individuals, but it isn't implicitly putting them down on some socioeconomic basis.
Now, is there a frequent equation in our culture of a lack of wealth with a lack of education and a lack of education with a lack of intelligence? Yes. But is that what I was talking about? No. But it is related, in a roundabout way.
To my mind, saying that a weird or out-of-left-field thing is "my aesthetic" can be a way of poking a hole in the notion of Capital-A Art while still embracing the possibility of the experience at the heart of the concept by positing that it can be found in literally anything if you look for it. It is both exposing the idea of these categories as absurd and elevating the absurd itself to their place-a kind of neo-Dada thing, if you will, particularly if you take things like vaporwave as a revival of Surrealist ideas about collage, reclamation of the mundane and the revolutionary power of the unfiltered psyche.
Incidentally, a lot of modern nostalgie de la boue conceptual collage stuff originally associated with the "aesthetic" meme )and particularly the faux-Japanese text variant) has the same sort of underlying left-wing subversive sentiment that the Surrealists consciously cultivated in their work, so the whole "'aesthetic' is classist" thing is reaching at best and just baffling at worst.
Which is to say, your attempts at Internet Age Marxism are so very much my aesthetic.
Yeah I didn't mean to imply you or anyone else using the highbrow/lowbrow thing is trying to be classist. More that the reason lowbrow stuff is looked down upon is because society/the Art establishment is classist.
Internet culture seems to be dominated by the young university-educated class, but because of the anonymity of the internet people are able to engage with things they wouldn't do in 'regular' society (for instance the Bronies), including so-called lowbrow art. I think it is that mix that has generated the popularity of "aesthetic".
Agilemind Now, that is fairer, I think. Openly indulging in subcultural stuff is much easier now that communication has become so wide-reaching and the degree of anonymity involved has made the fear of ridicule and societal censure less of an issue. But ultimately, I think that this fearlessness is beginning to effect changes outside of such closed circles of anonymous enthusiasts. Knowing that there are people like you everywhere means that the sort of collective stigma associated with identifying with things outside of your assigned box-the strong arm of hegemony, if you want to go the full Gramsci-has less power. Outside of basic internet access, privilege and class status means less, in some cases means nothing. Sure, the Internet can also bring together the worst of humanity, but it is also the great leveller. "Aesthetic," to me, is part of that grand demolition of "upstairs/downstairs" ideas about the world because it makes a mockery of all of it. Everything is ripe for both ridicule and unironic admiration. Everything is stupid, awesome, stupidly awesome and awesomely stupid.
"Everything can be appreciated as art." That was a good way to conclude. People who aren't particularly into art over other things think that art is only what is pleasing to see in a museum. However, I've come to the conclusion that art either does not exist, or everything is art. In a sense, both are correct at the same time.
+Tayderp (I have smegma so thick you can eat it with a fork.) Art is art when you call it art.
s a d b o y s 2 O O 1
Mike as well as John Koenig are some of the people I'd most like to have a coffee or a beer with and just talk for an afternoon about philosophy and/or just stuff :)
t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 is always good to hear.
I did my Senior Thesis for my BFA in Graphics Design on this exact thing. well not the Tumbler "A E S T H E T I C" but on what makes art and why people enjoy different types of art. Wish I had my research handy. It wasn't fully scientific and skewed to a younger generation, due to my lack of resources, But the verdict I came to is exactly what you talk about, the "Art" is the experience with something. the younger generation have a hard time Experiencing old static works, and the older generation don't have the context to Experience newer stranger works. I went about trying (do varying degrees of success and failure) to use Interactive design to help people experience different works starting with the easy to Experience (mostly Interactive and gripping works) and use what people learned from those experiences to help them makes steps to experience harder to understand Works. and finally helping them to see that the Experience is the where the Art happens and if you approach any piece of art with the mind set of wanting to Experience it the same way you would an Interactive Installation piece (if only in your Mind) you'll be able to understand it a bit more. it was a fascinating project, that just started with the question "why don't some of my peers enjoy art as much as I do?"
Pokemon Trainer aesthetic is rare; I don't often encounter it in the wild.
This needs more tumblr nerds curating this, but cool to hear the perspective of nerds from the older traditions :)
"Aesthetic" to me has come to define a particular aesthetic when used in certain contexts. An A E S T H E T I C aeshetic, so to speak. (It's a kind of vaporwavy style)
This idea that the history and physical presence of an object contributes to the value and aesthetic reminds me of the discussion of "historicity" in The Man in the High Castle specifically the argument against it by an illegal counterfeiter "It's all a big racket; they're playing it on themselves. I mean, a gun goes through a famous battle, like the Meuse-Argonne, and it's the same as if it hadn't, unless you know. It's in here.' He tapped his head. 'In the mind, not the gun."
ＡＥＳＴＨＥＴＩＣ
やつ朝や」早く4 2 0 浜佐田bl いい。
As a first-time commenter, I'm probably going to butcher his actual arguments horribly, but while watching the episode, I couldn't help think of Alexander Nehamas' thesis on beauty.
In short, Nehamas' thoughts on aesthetic are that it is akin to a kind of friendship - or even love- with the object one finds beautiful/enticing/intriguing/worthwhile: we hope that "if that thing or person were a part of my life, it would make it more worthwhile," he says. (Perhaps taking Wittgenstein to the next level and making it matter to who we are as people.)
Beauty is a "promise of happiness" Nehamas says- but ONLY a promise, because no one can be ever fully subsumed by the object of their affection, be it a painting, a TV show, a meme or a lover. What opens in between the artwork and the admirer is a conversation.
We develop a relationship with the object of aesthetic- we return to it, we are changed by it, we bring different parts of ourselves to it over time and it reveals different parts of itself as we engage more with it. We wish to introduce the object/person to others and, in turn, develop shared experiences with others who engage with the object/person. Investigating and entering into the conversation with the object of beauty introduces us to /other/ works of art that have influenced the primary object of affection.
With this frame, another way to approach the episode would be to ask: Can friendship exist and form on the internet, and if so- how and to what extent?
With the rise of social media not only for sustaining friendships but starting friendships and romantic relationships, it seems fitting that the idea of "A E S T H E T I C" has grown in many of those same spaces.
If Nehamas is onto something, what does that say about our "A E S T H E T I C" and does it mean its any less real if it remains purely online? I'm tempted to say no- a person who has never gone to the Grand Canyon can appreciate a picture of it in the same way as the person who took the picture and online-only relationships can be as intimate as those of old friends. However, there's also a really understandable and compelling drive, it seems, to bring some parts of one's online aesthetic to the meatspace- to try to replicate crafts seen on pinterest, or host fandom meetups or even cosplay as a means of trying to engage as closely as possible IRL with one's most cherished artworks.
For once, I think I didn't understand a single thing that was said in this video.
When asked what art is, Picasso pointed to a leather bicycle seat and handlebars hung on his wall in the shape of a bull's head, and said, "What isn't."
Your final words reminded me of this. :)
Is the internet only now discovering Vaporwave?
☆♢ M a c i n t o s h P l u s ♢☆
This is actually one of the best UA-cam videos I've watched in a while, and helps describe how I've long thought about Art. I've often heard people saying art is something that's created by an artist, And even sometimes stating that the intentional creation is part of what makes something art, That something made by unknowing natural forces, or simply by a human unintentionally, is not art (See for example the Big Joel video "The Art of Losing", Where he says basically that), But to me, Art, If its created at all, Is created by its observer, the one experiencing it, Simply by experiencing it as art. Since artistic value is all in a person, so too is something's status _as_ art, so anything _can be_ art if someone experiences it as that, but nothing is _inherently_ art, because nothing is inherently experienced, let alone done so as art. This does mean that, yes, the same thing can be art to one person and not art to another person, which I'd say is why there's often arguments that paint splattered on a canvas, or a blank white canvas, or a banana taped to a wall, aren't art; The people saying that don't just _believe_ that it's not art, to them, it _isn't_ art, but that doesn't mean that it's inherently not art, Because to somebody, it can be, and is, art.
Gif. GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIF!
This is so subjective i can't even
Or maybe that was the point entirely? Mind blown
Definitely glad he brought in Wittgenstein for this. Definitely wasn't expecting it but got my respect.
Nebraska landscapes are my kind of
A E S T H E T I C
Stop
Now
+Scarmigliodon
The word No is so
A E S T H E T I C A L L Y P L E A S I N G
I have nothing smart to add, just wanted to say I love this channel and thoroughly enjoyed this video in particular.
Did your language and/or articulation in this video change because you were seated, was that to get the right aesthetic or am I imagining things?
Your voice seemed somehow calmer than in most episodes. In a certain weird way I can't really describe better "more sophisticated" but "less excited".
Almost like we are being invited to a cult.... The whole vid is aesthetic, if you come to think of it: his shirt, the background, the frame used for all the media, and yes, his speech manner. I find it classy IMO
+Kram1032 I would describe it as: less ADHD-like
To say that aesthetics cannot be conveyed on a screen is discounting all of photography as art. Yes, seeing an object in the physical realm is a certain experience but a photograph of an object, place, or person is a different beast. That's why it can be so difficult to capture the beauty of a sculpture in a photo. It can require several images and still dwarf the beauty of being next to it or experiencing it hapticly. The photo itself has to be its own unique artwork in a sense
I think art and culture need this nebulous spectrum of what defines art and aesthetic experience to allow for the most progressive innovations and, therefore, cultural discourse. Of course this ubiquity also means giving consideration to what might seem ‘meaningless’ or ‘unartistic’ but, without that consideration, something brilliant, and therefore culturally beneficial, might be overlooked or dismissed.
so so similar to the idea of closure Scott McCloud discusses in Understanding Comics, no? couldn't help think of the way McCloud talks about the way that each person will turn the juxtaposed images into a completed narrative in an individual way guided by their sociocultural background and experiences with other media texts, but that this process can also he guided and mediated by the artist. the final narrative being a mix of our own reading guided and influenced by the artist and writer. can see so many parallels between this and McCloud's closure, and perhaps closure can even expand the concept of aesthetic
sorta surprised that you didn't mention vaporwave at all in relation to this.
+Everfalling at 1:30 when he said " ...strongly associated with Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter" I knew he would never mention Vaporwave.
i don't even have that much to say about this video except for the fact that i love it
"while not everything is art, everything can be appreciated as art" is my aesthetic hahah
The a e s t h e t i c of this video is 'pretentious.' LOL JK
Interestingly enough, my kyudo (Japanese archery) manual written in 1953 uses aesthetic in a similar fashion. Kyudo, compared to Western archery, has stayed deliberately inconvenient with one of the longest longbows to date, a slow and tedious process of footwork and form, and in the end it hardly even matters if your arrow hits the center of the target. Throughout the manual it says the reason for every little strange detail is for aesthetic value. The asymmetrical longbow is meant to represent male and female, and there are a number of right angles present in your body while shooting (if you're doing it right). All of this was retained over kyudo's long history because its meant to be a sport of beauty, perfection and aesthetic rather than competition.
love all these drop ins by other channels.
Shortest horror story: "*the sound of an alarm clock going off in the morning, cutting short an extatic dream*"
10:21 High quality picture
I kind of agree with you -- beauty doesn't exist for itself, it exists because we experience it. In this way you may say that beauty exists as the experience of itself, and this experience can differ from person to person. Great video as always!
f r a n k j a v c e e w h e n
This is exactly... My buddy and I have considered what we value in art as artists, as being divided between 3 different spectrums.
1 the "aesthetic" spectrum, form, what things look/sound like, source Scott McCloud's spectrum of style in Understanding comics.
2 What is the known intention behind it, a spectrum of intention, basically your context for viewing or experiencing the work, (is it marketable, is it communicating, is it representational, is the form/meaning unintentional or intentional) source being the Japanese concept of Heta-Uma, - things that look bad can also feel nice.
3 is what the Art achieves. Which, I suppose is what the viewer does with the work, or how they react. When you say they "like, share, take, catalog" It can also be about how they take that work of art and use it in their lives. People endlessly referencing a comedy album, or how Duckie from Pretty In Pink can make someone a more compassionate person, etc. Also within a society, what purpose does that art achieve, being separated from it's original intention.
This is a driving perspective with how I think and talk about art. Thanks.
gyf?! srsly?
It's a joke solution to the "soft g" vs "hard g" debates that became a running joke.
Ohhhhh!
+Rowan Evans But why did he pronounce it "jife" instead of "jiff"?!
Ethan Merrill The joke relies on stepping outside of the standard two sides of the debate and taking a pronunciation that no-one seriously supports. "jiff" is what "soft g" meant; if I wrote out the difference as "gif vs jif" that would be biased in favour of one side. Worse yet, the objectively wrong side.
Rowan Evans You mean you don't pronounce it Jraphics Eyenterchange Format?
It's funny because ideas similar to these have arisen independently of one-another. TV Tropes deals extensively with fan-theory and what defines "canon" and "fanon". Basically it's artistic intent and art theory concepts in a less snooty context. A person may dislike, say, the character Princess Celestia in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, because of the popular fan theory that Celestia is a tyrannical troll, regardless of clues to this characterization being largely absent to the show. This is somewhat similar to disliking Picasso paintings because of his womanizing; not in the text.
How do you get through a video about aesthetic without using the word "pretentious"?
+Zero Richardson How is appreciating the looks of something pretentious?
+Zero Richardson The same way you couldn't help but comment that.
Calling art critique and literary theory pretentious is one of the most pretentious acts I can think of. :P
Didn't see these comments for some reason, but to explain for people that didn't understand: watch the video first.
They circle around this idea in the video and talk about people using the word without understanding it fully or perhaps being hipsters. I was commenting on both the backlash to people overusing it / using it incorrectly and on the people overusing it / using it incorrectly themselves. I thought my comment encapsulated this, but I was being subtle-which doesn't translate well into text.
Mike's lip goes up on the right side. The opposite of Stallone... A E S T H E T I C.
another dank meme has been taken
They can take our weed, but they'll never take OUR MAYMAYS!
that A-frame tho. (@ 8:23)
...i spent the whole video thinking about Data telling Jenna, "You are as aesthetically pleasing as the day we met." Yup. Star Trek is in EVERYTHING.
Frankjavcee comment in 3...2...
+Nick M please no
I really enjoyed this video. Also really enjoyed hearing Mike talk at a slower pace. It reminds me of how he talks in his podcasts. Not that I don't like the faster videos, but I find the slower pace calming in a way? Either way, great work.
New studio and format? Looks much more "uptight" than before but not a bad change I guess
So true, but this might be because of the subject matter as well, but I totally know what you mean
It appears to just be a different part of the studio that's being used specifically for this video
+I really hate making up names for this kind of stuff that is the best username ever
Tumblr weirdo here. This video actually touches on something pretty personal to me. I have bpd and, for me, that means having identity issues is a part of everyday life (basically every single day). I often find it hard to keep a firm grip on...who I am. And one of the ways I cope is by posting "aesthetic" posts.
My aesthetic tag isn't filled with ipads in bathtubs, this is more than a meme to me. I guess you could say it's self expression, but it seems like more than that in my case. What I do isn't just expression, it's...preservation? construction? It's an expression of my personality and also maintenance of the personality. These posts often act as an anchor when I get lost in my own head. So basically, I've found the whole ~aesthetic~ thing to be a pretty handy tool.
I hate when people use it as an adjective
I took the idea of how people use aesthetic to not have so much of an artistic meaning but more so as a way to use pictures or concepts as adjectives. Like when people tend to have an image that they refer to as "their aesthetic" it seems more so to be using that image to describe themselves, taking the artistic qualities not for the purpose of saying it is art but using them as a way to describe a thing. Like turning the expression "a picture is worth a thousand words" into a universal adjective.
F R A N K . . .
_where are you?_
I love the way the word aesthetic has come to change in the way it has, I love how it adds weight to the idea that, as you said, anything can be art if it is seen that way. I see plenty of grumbling people looking at pieces that sold for millions and say 'that isn't art' as though they COULD have done it, but they did not. I cherish the idea that we can find meaning and beauty in anything, that we can connect in a special way to a thing. I have always felt that there is nothing wrong there, there need not be an exclusivity to what is aesthetic or what is art. To find beauty and artistry in the every day is one of life's treasures.