ARCH-871DP Cosmoaesthetics

3 Credits

What if aesthetics is of the cosmos? This course expands the horizon of aesthetics (both the art of life and the life of art) beyond anthropocentric givens and canonical dead ends, paving an alternative path in alliance with a heterodox lineage of overlooked philosophers (Heraclitus, Laozi, Ibn Arabi, Spinoza, Whitehead), stargazing artists (Virginia Woolf, Edgard Varèse, Francis Bacon, Andrei Tarkovsky, Pina Bausch, David Foster Wallace), and misconstrued architects and sci-fi worldbuilders (Neanderthal constructors, László Moholy-Nagy, Philip K. Dick, Cedric Price, Octavia Butler, Vogelkop bowerbirds). The aim is to craft a cosmic aesthetic lens for 1) analyzing the affective processes underlying the reception and production of sensation, artworks, and architectural constructs, 2) contemplating different modalities of aesthetic intensification, emancipation, and ecstasy, and 3) exploring surprising discoveries within the affective interfusion of cosmic dust, planetary tectonics, bowerbird nests, and cybernetic buildings. F