Examining Aesthetic Subjectivity in Embodied Environments
Creators: name: Nevin Berger, Rebecca
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2019
Subjects: aesthetic
embodied aesthetic
everyday aesthetics
aesthetic language
language of landscape
everyday materials
feminism
ecology
ecology of water
ecological crisis
ecological feminism
materiality
new materialism
multi-artform practice
installation
immersive installation
textile installation
image making
practice-led research
home
house
home and the landscape
post-colonial landscape
representationalism
colonial landscape painting
mapping
practices of habituation
practices of the everyday
water and the domestic space
subjectivity
feminist subjectivity
reimagining subjectivity
space making practices
connection
habitual perception
aesthetic connection
situated listening
situated inquiry
carnal knowledge
body and environment continuum
entropy
entropy and the home
soundscape
sound installation
bathroom
cleaning
cleaning practices
sensory language
assemblages
intra-action
vital materialism
oikos
domestication of water
urban water
Australian landscape
space
high altitude video

description: This inquiry has been concerned with identifying aesthetic languages that make visible relationships and processes that connect body and world beyond the surface of the skin. It hypothesised that aesthetic language provides a material connection which co-enables this exchange. Examining the aesthetic dimension of the embodiment-environment intersection, this inquiry reasoned, could make tangible the material continuum generated through transient processes of living. The key sites of the home and the landscape framed the scope of this research. The methodology used to undertake this research combined multi-artform practice spanning sculpture, video, installation, and drawing, visual diary-led observation and critical reflection, theoretical research, and critical engagement with the work of other artists and practitioners working in two- and three-dimensions. An examination of subjectivity and of aesthetics as an intersection of body and world centres this research. A new materialist perspective provides a logic and drive for scrutinising this intersection. New materialism unsettles traditional assumptions about the passivity of matter. It provides a framework for re-imagining the materiality of the world and the position of human subjectivity within it: a re-imagining, this research contends, that the current ecological crisis demands. The notion of aesthetics used in this inquiry is an embodied aesthetics that refers to the meaningful sensuousness that adheres and orients the body in the world. Ideas from John Dewey and the field of everyday aesthetics informed critical engagement in this embodied aesthetics through creative practice. This approach enabled a dialogue between special aesthetic experiences, everyday aesthetics, and habitual perception to emerge in the research. This research used aesthetics to examine how spaces are demarcated and different experiences enabled. Over time, the home as it is situated within the landscape became analogous for the body’s intertwining with the environment. In this context, the material passage of water through the home provided a powerful and instructive embodiment of this intertwining, revealing both the demarcation and the continuity of disparate spaces. The final body of artwork is an installation that integrates the key aesthetic languages developed through this inquiry to form a three-dimensional river that is animated with the everyday sounds of water and the textures of domestic warmth. It is titled Oikos, the Greek root for ecology. ‘Oikos’ means ‘whole house and dwelling place’. The artwork reflects the multi-layering of aesthetic relationships through which our bodies fuse with this world.