Ecological Aesthetics: artful tactics for humans, nature, and politics (Interfaces: Studies in Visual Culture)

With this poetic and scholarly collection of stories about art, artists, and their materials, Nathaniel Stern argues that ecology, aesthetics, and ethics are inherently entwined, and together act as the cornerstone for all contemporary arts practices. An ecological approach, says Stern, takes account of agents, processes, thoughts, and relations. Humans, matter, concepts, things, not-yet-things, politics, economics, and industry are all actively shaped in, and as, their interrelation. And aesthetics are a style of, and orientation toward, thought―and thus action. Including dozens of color images, this book narrativizes artists and artworks―ranging from print to installation, bio art to community activism―contextualizing and amplifying our experiences and practices of complex systems and forces, our experiences and practices of thought. Stern, an artist himself, writes with an eco-aesthetic that continually unfurls artful tactics that can also be used in everyday existence.

Arts & Photography

Stern, Nathaniel

History & Criticism

Dartmouth College Press

What is interactive art? Is this a genre? A medium? An art movement? Must a work be physically active to be classified as such, or do we interact when we sense and make sense? Is a switch-throw or link-click enough - I do this, and that happens - or must subjects and objects be confused over time? Is interaction multiple in its engagements (relational), or a one-to-one reaction (programmed)? Are interactive designs somehow more democratic and individualized than others, or is that merely a commercial strategy to sell products and ideas?
This book argues that interactive art frames moving-thinking-feeling as embodiment; the body is addressed as it is formed, and in relation. Interactive installations amplify how the body's inscriptions, meanings, and matters unfold out, while the world's sensations, concepts, and matters enfold in. Interactive artwork creates situations that enhance, disrupt, and alter experience and action in ways that call attention to our varied relationships with and as both structure and matter. Nathaniel Stern's inspirational book, Interactive Art and Embodiment, outlines how new media has the ability to intervene in, and challenge, not only the construction of bodies and identities, but also the ongoing and emergent processes of embodiment, as they happen. It includes immersive descriptions of a significant number of interactive artworks and over 40 colour images. The theorists, artists, practitioners and curators discussed in this text include Brian Massumi, Christiane Paul, Sarah Cook, Beryl Graham, Kelli Fuery, Theodore Watson, William Kentridge, Char Davies, Stelarc, Janet Cardiff, Carlo Zanni, Tero Saarinen, Karen Barad, Daniel Rozin, Richard Schechner, Nicole Ridgway, Rebecca Schneider, Annie Sprinkle, Karen Finley, VALIE EXPORT, The Guerrilla Girls, Tegan Bristow, Brian Knep, Anna Munster, Zach Lieberman, Golan Levin, Simon Penny, Camille Utterback, Jean-Luc Nancy, The Millefiore Effect, Nick Crossley, Mathieu Briand, Scott Snibbe, David Rokeby, José Gil, Erin Manning, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and Norah Zuniga Shaw Contents Acknowledgments (p. xi) Series Foreword (p. xiii) Introduction: Art Philosophy (p. 1) Chapter 1: Digital is as Digital Does (p. 21) Chapter 2: The Implicit Body as Performance (p. 53) Chapter 3: A Critical Framework for Interactive Art (p. 89) Chapter 4: Body-Language (p. 105) Chapter 5: Social-Anatomies (p. 143) Chapter 6: Flesh-Space (p. 173) Chapter 7: Implicating Art Works (p. 205) In Production: Companion Chapter (Introduction) (p. 253) Bibliography (p. 261) Index (p. 281)

Interactive Art and Embodiment: The Implicit Body as Performance (Arts Future Book)

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Books by Stern, Nathaniel

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stern, Nathaniel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Ecological Aesthetics: artful tactics for humans, nature, and politics (Interfaces: Studies in Visual Culture)

Ecological Aesthetics: artful tactics for humans, nature, and politics (Interfaces: Studies in Visual Culture)

Interactive Art and Embodiment: The Implicit Body as Performance (Arts Future Book)