Status Updates From Speculative Aesthetics

Singleton’s ‘Speculative Design’ discusses similar themes seen in Beech’s chapter. The links he makes between ‘design’ and ‘manipulation’ (of nature, people etc.) are incredibly interesting. Lastly, Singleton depicts his ‘speculative design’ as kind of an inverse to the ‘forensic’ view of the world; constructing ‘plots’ rather than reconstructing them. Love it so far!

I found Amanda Beech’s chapter, Art and it’s ‘Science’, to be an amazing introduction to whats often pejoratively called ‘modern’ art. Beech provides a solid critique of some preconceptions about stable, solid identity that are commonly found within contemporary practice of art and finishes with a call to understand ‘the image’ as a critical-political project. Would definitely recommend!

Mackay’s introduction to Speculative Aesthetics provides a very solid explanation of the intersection between Speculative Realism, aesthetics and the sociopolitical. The description out of an accelerationist project of ‘reconfigured aesthetics’ at the end of the chapter sets the stage for the first ‘session’ of the text. Very good so far!

Some very interesting discussions, some are pretty opaque and might even be dangerous. Which is interesting never the less.