Saturday, April 14, 2012

Another Way In

From Mishka Henner's
Dutch Landscapes" series.
Via new-aesthetic.tumblr.com.
"The New Aesthetic Needs to Get Weirder", by Ian Bogost (the author of Alien Phenomenology, which we'll read this semester), is a good place to start thinking through the implications of putting the nonhuman and the nonsymbolic front and center.
"I've suggested the term ontography as a name for creating lists, groups, or other collections of things for the purpose of documenting the repleteness under one tiny rock of existence. Ontography is an aesthetic set theory: it can take the form of lists, photographs, collections, even tumblrs, perhaps, with enough practice. Collection is aesthetically productive, but a collection that strives to trace an asymptote toward infinity creates obligation instead of clarity."