Black Bucket Essays
Volume 1, Issue 5
"Ethics and aesthetics are one"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Nicole Herbert
When I first encountered Wittgenstein’s quote, “Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same”, I was finishing my second summer of graduate school at MICA’s low-residency MFA program in Studio Art. At the conclusion of our critical studies class that summer, we were asked to use the quote to contextualize our practice and to consider contemporary artwork in relationship to context. In my presentation, I discussed how as a consequence of reading Henri Lefebvre, I spent a good portion of the six weeks on Baltimore’s public transportation systems, riding around on the light rail, the bus, and the water taxi. I did make some art that summer, but I spent most of the time stuck, reading, and thinking.
What Lefebvre meant to me was to think about and experience space as a construct, as opposed to a given. For Lefebvre, space is produced, meaning that it isn’t neutral, inert, or a pre-existing given. In the Production of Space, he writes about how space decides what type of activity can occur and discusses the limitations of this decision making process. He writes, “space commands bodies, prescribing or proscribing gestures, routes and distances to be covered” (Lefebvre: 143). I could make decisions about whether I would ride the light rail or the bus, but the paths were predetermined and there were a limited amount of stops. While riding around on Baltimore’s public transportation, I experienced the production of space as a system that both produces and reproduces the status quo, which can “conjure away both possibility and time” (Lefebvre: 143).
At the time, responding to Wittgenstein’s quote in relationship to Lefebvre and public transportation encouraged me to see art within a broader social context and to look at my everyday environment differently. Formulating this response also helped me to focus on aligning my art practice with my research. It also helped me to concentrate on questioning as an integral aspect of this process. I continue to respond to the question, “How can art be used to encourage someone to look at something familiar like a traveler does, before it becomes normal or routine?” The ethics of this aesthetic inquiry questions the mechanisms that filter and mediate our experience. It attempts to open up the possibility for experiencing the world less reflexively and questions the extent to which we can have agency with our perceptions.
Volume 1, Issue 5
"Ethics and aesthetics are one"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Nicole Herbert
When I first encountered Wittgenstein’s quote, “Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same”, I was finishing my second summer of graduate school at MICA’s low-residency MFA program in Studio Art. At the conclusion of our critical studies class that summer, we were asked to use the quote to contextualize our practice and to consider contemporary artwork in relationship to context. In my presentation, I discussed how as a consequence of reading Henri Lefebvre, I spent a good portion of the six weeks on Baltimore’s public transportation systems, riding around on the light rail, the bus, and the water taxi. I did make some art that summer, but I spent most of the time stuck, reading, and thinking.
What Lefebvre meant to me was to think about and experience space as a construct, as opposed to a given. For Lefebvre, space is produced, meaning that it isn’t neutral, inert, or a pre-existing given. In the Production of Space, he writes about how space decides what type of activity can occur and discusses the limitations of this decision making process. He writes, “space commands bodies, prescribing or proscribing gestures, routes and distances to be covered” (Lefebvre: 143). I could make decisions about whether I would ride the light rail or the bus, but the paths were predetermined and there were a limited amount of stops. While riding around on Baltimore’s public transportation, I experienced the production of space as a system that both produces and reproduces the status quo, which can “conjure away both possibility and time” (Lefebvre: 143).
At the time, responding to Wittgenstein’s quote in relationship to Lefebvre and public transportation encouraged me to see art within a broader social context and to look at my everyday environment differently. Formulating this response also helped me to focus on aligning my art practice with my research. It also helped me to concentrate on questioning as an integral aspect of this process. I continue to respond to the question, “How can art be used to encourage someone to look at something familiar like a traveler does, before it becomes normal or routine?” The ethics of this aesthetic inquiry questions the mechanisms that filter and mediate our experience. It attempts to open up the possibility for experiencing the world less reflexively and questions the extent to which we can have agency with our perceptions.
