Editorial Introduction: "Some Drawdowns from the Well of Design Culture"

The relation between disability and design is conceived more often than not as a one-way and necessary consequentiality: the former is taken as the problem, the latter as the solution (even if partial). In this division of roles a paradoxical dialectic works: design gets a substantial confirmation of being the problem-solver as such by the very fact that disability (either conceived according to medical or social model) is accounted for as a problem. And a wicked one, for that matter. For that very reason, design, when it follows its mission in the most responsible way, considers not only functional, sensory, and locomotive impairment or mental incapability, but the social handicap, legal and political inequality, economic and labor market hindrance as well, seeing all those as an amalgam of challenges. Not refusing the potential and actual benefits our societies had or could gain from the operations of design as problem-solving, I am contending in my talk that a reversal of the formula would also lead to beneficial outcomes for the greater good of everyone. To articulate this position one should raise some questions: what might design learn from the differently abled people and disability culture in general? How can design meet its own limitations? From what perspective does design prove to be 'disabled'? Thanks to a proliferation of more or less good examples both in the academia and the market sector, design examples can pop up in an endless row in one’s mind when it comes to enumerate the possible creative approaches towards the goals of furthering personal self-determination, social participation, and sheer bodily capacities. My aim is not just to confirm or laud some of them but critically assess as well. What Liz Jackson calls "disability ingenuity" seems to me a much more important and forward-looking phenomenon than the whole plethora of "disability design" produced many times by emerging designers seeking attention. I believe this, because Jackson’s concept applies not only on the socio-economic sector under the umbrella term of 'disability' but includes great potential also for the wider and more general social life.

The aim of this track is to reconsider, reconceptualize, and challenge the everyday belief that modern design improves the quality of life, including its mental, psychological, somatic, interpersonal and environmental dimensions. We call for contributions that either judiciously analyse the overly optimistic expectations that surround modern and contemporary design, or provide reconfigurations of the position, status and use of design for the sake of human dignity, health, well-being, and interpersonal relationships. We aim to delve into the intricate connections between the body, social structure, communities and the urban sphere in terms of health, sickness and the “standardized” body vis-a-vis design theory and practice.

How can we develop an artistic practice that is relevant and satisfying in terms of mental challenges and physical intensity alike? How can we reach a state in which any human practice can be satisfying in both senses? As John Dewey put it in his Philosophy and Civilization (1931), “the integration of mind-body in action is the most practical of all questions that we can ask of our civilisation.” This study approaches the issue from two different directions. Firstly, it takes rock climbing, a physical practice infrequently discussed in philosophical and aesthetic literature, as a possible model that can indicate a way of re-orienting art in its ordinary usage. Secondly, the art-like character of rock climbing, as an example of difficult physical activity and lifestyle sport, is discussed. To do so, the phenomenology of the climbing experience is foregrounded to grasp the specificity of the somatic experience. As a second step, the interdisciplinary study of somaesthetics is invoked to highlight the aesthetic relevance, somaesthetic interest, cognitive values and transformative effects underlying climbing practices. Seeking to fill a gap in current scholarship, this article aims to contribute equally to sports philosophy, somaesthetics and art theory. Aural architecture might seem at the first sight as some oddity, a deliberately unique niche genre, and an out-of-the-ordinary hue on the wide spectrum of built environments. In contrast, the essay overviews some of the most important aspects that foster a broader conceptualization of architecture conceived as substantially interlinked with the sonic realm. In comparison with the established discourse on soundscape, this writing does not start from fieldworks and empirical-based terms with the goals of a general theorization but works the other way around: it arrives at the notion of soundscape in its conclusion by pointing out the unsatisfying nature of any conception of architecture that misses the aural aspects of architectural space, hence excluding a crucial somaesthetic dimension both from theoretical discourse and designer practice.

Although music has been conceived as an art of pure emotions and devoid of concepts, it has always gained its significance in intermedial contexts. The sense and impact of music are inevitably articulated through a medial transfer since music contains much more than its sonic aspect. Intermediality, however, that occurs in the interplay of music and its surrounding verbal discourses, remains routine-like or largely unnoticed within institutionalized forms such as music criticism, music history, and the like. By contrast, other intermedial effects of music become highly pronounced when the interplay of musical and linguistic medium is enriched by the involvement of other media, primarily visual ones. If, for example, music becomes the object of the depiction in a painting, we won't necessarily approach the visual work in the same way as if the depiction was a mere commentary on a pre-existing music phenomenon. “You’ll never look at music the same way again!” – as the slogan put it, back in the early days of Music Television. Although music videos provide an ample repository of visually hijacked, exploited, or intensified musical experiences, their medial dynamics cannot be held as novelties, at least as far as cultural modernity is concerned. This chapter searches for much earlier examples of the audiovisual experience. At the same time, it explores its aesthetic and historical preconditions and the workings of intermediality concerning several 18th and 19th-century musical pictures.

Design permeates every dimension of our lifeworld, from the products we consume and the built environments in which we live to the adorned and stylized beings that we are and the natural preserves where we seek relief from the stressful bustle of urban life. Design is where contrasting values of functionality and aesthetic pleasure converge. At the core of design is the human soma, an active, perceptive subjectivity that creates and evaluates design but is also its cultivated product. This collection of ten essays explores the somaesthetics of design in multiple fields: from ritual, craft, and healthcare to architecture, urbanism, and the new media of extended realities.

Budapest, Moholy-Nagy University of Art & Design, 11-13 May 2023

15.10.2021 Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Art, Krakow

In the last two decades, research on the arts showed that the perspective provided by somaesthetics could highly contribute to the efforts of rethinking artistic practices and the aesthetic experience in general (Shusterman 2014; Journal of Somaesthetics vol. 1-7). In addition, somaesthetic perspective helped also to re-conceptualize the social impacts art exerts (Ryynänen 2015), viewing those from different angles than the ones provided by the sociology of art (Luhman 2000), relational aesthetics (Bourriaud 2002), participation theories (Bishop 2012) or the anthropology of culture (Pfeiffer). Taking part in these efforts, in an earlier study (Veres 2014) I suggested taking architecture as the best model for a somaesthetically oriented scrutiny of the arts and conceiving it as the main point of orientation throughout the aesthetic field. However, given that aesthetic phenomena are countless and infinite, I fully admit the model provided by architecture might seem less explanatory with regards to the somaesthetic aspects of intensely performative creative practices, like dance, music or theatre play, and all the human activities, which are relevant aesthetically but do not have the status of art. What directly connects architectural structures to the overall Lebenswelt in an encompassing experience is the dimension of audibility that comes with every kinesphere, most notably in the public space and the multifarious sites of human residency. This presentation shall provide some critical comments for a somaesthetically conscious and acoustically sensitive architectural planning.

25-28 May 2022, Moholy-Nagy University of Art&Design, Budapest

homepage: pae30.mome.hu

06-08. 05. 2019., Budapest, Moholy-Nagy University of Art&Design