Art House (Cultural/Media and Communications)

Introduction

The German philosopher Gernot Bohme describes aesthetic perception as a process of stimulation. This process leads us to a dialogical relationship to the world: “…in perceiving we become aware of ourselves as present in our environment. Perception is a divided reality. It is shared between the subject and the object, the perceiving and the perceived. The perceiving subject is real as it participates in the presence of the things, the perceived object is real in the perceiving presence of the subject.”

Such a perception is touched by its environment. The aura of a piece of art, as Benjamin calls it, steps towards the viewer. This aura does not appear through an examining, determining and identifying view; it looks at me, the viewer. The experience of an aura is the result of a mode of perception that notices the arrival of what comes into our awareness as an experience. As long as we perceive only the visible, it remains invisible to us.

… There are many different ways in which I can become conscious of the green leaf that I am looking at. The way an object or situation responds to me depends on how I focus my perception.

… In this case knowledge is not acquired by evaluating or reflecting upon situations retrospectively, but in actu, as they happen. In this sense, scientific research can only be understood as an active, creative process in which the researcher has the responsibility to allow space for that which he is interacting with to come into being, to express itself. Such a scientific practice must be aesthetic itself.

~ Peter Sinapius