Objectifying Expression
Aesthetic experience is tied to nostalgia and memory—that is to say, to subjective experience. Lived experience expands and illuminates the art we take in. This is not ideal, perhaps, but it’s real.
Claire Dederer • Monsters
Taste is not necessarily instantaneous and changes as you consider and digest the experience of an artwork: “We become aware of the presence of great beauty when something inspires us with a surprise which at first is only mild, but…
Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
Kyle Chayka • Filterworld
no, it isn’t entirely sensible to take thousands of pictures of your life (or to undertake many of the projects that captivate us); and, no, you’re not likely to wring transcendence out of the mundane on a regular basis. You can, however, learn something about yourself and your world by doing or attempting to do these things. Even amateur hour beco... See more
A lot of people think that photography disconnects the viewer from the world, imagining for instance the person holding their phone at a concert, but I think often it’s the opposite. Practicing photography compels you to ponder what is meaningful and beautiful in your surroundings. Once you gain this aesthetic self-discovery, it stays with you fore... See more
On the Usefulness of Photography
Steps away from me, a visitor holds a camera to his eye to take a photograph of a photograph of Georgia’s unblinking face. In the moment it feels like a surreal thing to witness, but again I understand why it’s happening. Behind that apparatus, the gentleman feels that he has a surer grip on reality, as it can be difficult to fully experience what
... See morePatrick Bringley • All the Beauty in the World
The camera isolated momentary appearances and in so doing destroyed the idea that images were timeless. Or, to put it another way, the camera showed that the notion of time passing was inseparable from the experience of the visual (except in paintings). What you saw depended upon where you were when.