A Defence of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley

“A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth.” I feel like a common theme with me is always feeling stuck between tech vs art, science vs beauty, designer vs artist, reason vs imagination, logic vs perception, realism vs idealism, thinking vs feeling, etc … this is why Percy Shelley is an especially interesting Romantic author to me, because he specifically champions poetry and beauty alongside and in congruence with science and reason. Rather than appreciating art for beauty’s sake, he argues that the combination of reason and imagination actually leads to a betterment of our society overall; this conceptual framework is very appealing to me when considering the role of art in my life. (This also connects to The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Francisco Goya).

Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag

“We need less interpretation and more experience.” This piece speaks extremely closely to what I believe and what I want to create – art that doesn’t really need an explanation or an underlying theory to be interpreted. I really resonate with how she says art should be incantatory, magical, ritualistic. This is kind of the roadblock I even feel in this thesis project, because a thesis by definition requires a foundation of theory and interpretation, and I’m struggling a bit to reconcile these two forces – should I commit to just creating things I find beautiful or interesting, or should I pivot towards a direction that feels more practical and research-based? Anyway, the juxtaposition between Sontag’s perspective and that of being in art school, as we are, is really interesting to me – she urges us to view art through the lenses of emotion, sensation, and form, rather than justifying what we make and situating it in theory, discourse, and historical context & critiquing based on intent and conceptual grounding, as we tend to do.

Computer Lib / Dream Machines by Ted Nelson

I haven’t read all of this (and it’s quite dated), but I think it’s a really interesting insight into an almost alternate future of technology where it is primarily used as a powerful co-creation tool for thinking, learning, and creating art, rather than a portal into passive media consumption. Obviously people do also use technology in that creative way currently, but I feel in general we have a totally different view on tech, not one where it could function as a dream machine that we must demystify and then conquer. Also, I loved the formatting / hand-drawn / DIY almost feel of this book.

Digital Tarkovsky by Metahaven

‘Metahaven reportedly turn to Tarkovsky while “searching for [their] capacities, in a digital sphere, to believe in an image (again)”, extolling the director as a blueprint for the future of the digital… through a series of a highly amusing, yet ultimately unconvincing, developments Digital Tarkovsky recasts Tarkovsky as the lost prophet of new media theory.’ I was surprised to find this after naming Tarkovsky as one of my visual references, and completely unrelatedly researching media theory for the theoretical backing of my project – it seems others have made this connection as well, although some critics (as quoted above) are unconvinced of the connection. I think this is a good source to find other sources on film and media theory, and I also am very drawn in by the quote about “believing in an image again.” I think my project is very much about this idea.

Expanded Cinema by Gene Youngblood

I haven’t finished this, but it seems prescient regarding immersive visual environments and their emotional/philosophical potential, and also has a fun sci-fi feeling. One review calls it “ a future forecast by way of a vibe report, a prophecy that, seen from the vantage of the present, feels at once strikingly prescient and poignantly off the mark.” Part of my efforts in researching more about the form of video itself.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth

The simplicity of such a scene – a cloud floating above a vast field of daffodils, by the waves of the ocean, inside a forest, a scene you could recall later and feel joy from – is the exact kind of imagery I am really drawn to.

Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I love the vivid, surreal, fever-dream imagery in these Romantic poems; I feel like just recreating these landscapes with our modern technology would be so striking.

Our Aesthetic Categories by Sianne Ngai

‘What is the difference between beauty and the sublime? [T]he two categories are suggestive of radically different ways of understanding the world, and the question—one wrestled with by figures like Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant—contains the anxieties of its time. Beauty is recognition, mastery, a scale that we can comprehend; the sublime remains mysterious, metaphysical, difficult to take in all at once. To speak of beauty and the sublime, then, is to have a conversation on rational judgment and faith.” Ngai’s work (both this and Ugly Feelings) are an interesting contrast to the areas I’m interested in; I feel compelled towards these grander concepts like beauty and the sublime, as a reaction to mundanity or loss of meaning perhaps in the modern world, but Ngai embraces the disenchantment in a sense and acknowledges that in our day to day life, we are less often encountering rare, awe-inspiring moments of emotional resonance.

Phrases by Arthur Rimbaud

I like how Rimbaud writes a series of disjointed, evocative images. A series of disjointed, evocative images is also how I envision the form of my final piece to feel. White sunset, purple flowers, a dark morning in July, etc.

Tech Agnostic by Greg Epstein

This whole AI-as-God thing is so fascinating … but to be honest I’m not sure how it will actually influence my project at the end of the day.

The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion by Marcel Gauchet

The main idea here is that the world used to be more religious, with ancient societies believing they were governed by divine forces – but the world evolving into a more secular culture doesn’t mean we lost that power of ‘belief’ – we just channel it into our culture and politics now. Essentially, we still crave and need something to collectively believe in. Romanticism is like an adjacent-ish counter-movement to secular modernity, in which they attempt to re-enchant the world, without necessarily reverting back to religion. Honestly I feel like I’ve moved away a bit from the religion / spirituality avenues of research, but it was a seminal text to consider.

The Re-Enchantment of the World: Secular Magic in a Rational Age by Joshua Landy and Michael Saler

This piece challenges the notion of modern life being disenchanted, and provides all the avenues of modernity that give us opportunities for meaning-making. This is actually also in line with the main ideas I’ve been researching, I agree that humanity necessarily feels this overwhelming urge to fill the vacuum left behind when we lost the convictions that gave us meaning, and we try to find anything in the modern world to fill that void – hence the whole AI superintelligence thing. I haven’t read this yet but it is my top priority to read next, I think the contributions from various authors in literature, history, and philosophy sound very compelling and I’m curious to discover more formats of modern re-enchantment.

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin

When art becomes democratized, its aura decays. He was writing this in the 1930s when mechanical reproduction threatened artwork’s aura – he defines this as something spatially and temporally determined, a distance and authenticity that disappears when you attempt replication, in essence you are trying to keep getting closer by any means necessary, including making copies and ‘owning’ it – yet it is weirdly relevant today. This concept also abstractly reminds me of the desire of ownership in the Disenchantment of the World piece, where he says ‘Disenchantment has led to a redirection of energy towards the material world, emphasizing activity in the here and now rather than the beyond. This shift has resulted in a more possessive relationship with nature and a drive to innovate and transform the world around us.’ Benjamin and Gauchet both aren’t saying this in a negative way however, Benjamin acknowledges the way mass reproduction makes art more accessible, political, and social, and meanwhile Gauchet says how this redirection of energy away from religion makes humans have a greater sense of ownership over their own actions and the power we wield.

Ugly Feelings by Sianne Ngai

If my goal for my project is to create visuals that are emotionally resonant, then it follows that the aesthetics of emotions themselves is a crucial area of research for me. I haven’t read all of this but I thought it was an interesting coincidence how Ngai calls these ugly feelings, like envy, irritation, anxiety, etc “sentiments of disenchantment.”