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The aesthetics of the double

The possibility space otherwise helping us to know the world

Josephine Condemi
a story by
Josephine Condemi
 
 
The aesthetics of the double

Dear reader,

Over the past six months, we have explored six different habitats where life either flourishes or once flourished: the mangrove, the city, the desert, freshwater, the forest, saltwater, and space. We chose a relational approach that we intend to continue. Starting with the “macro” – the ecosystems – over the next six months, we will shift towards the “micro,” delving into that specific “how” of our understanding that is the aesthetic experience.

Etymologically, aesthetics derives from the Greek word aisthésis, which signified knowledge of the world through bodily sensitivity. It’s a multisensory perception that becomes cognition, which in turn is influenced by cognition. It’s an interaction that binds us to the world, a world we are part of and help to shape, even as we imagine it.

It is no coincidence that the quintessential aesthetic objects are artistic ones – expressions of individual and/or collective sensibilities drawing from imagination and/or imagery, creating many possible portrayals of the world. These are images that represent or reproduce the world, but more often, they convey it intensified by the emotions and meanings experienced by those who engage with them. Emotions and meanings are also activated by mirror neurons – motor neurons that fire when we recognise others’ actions or witness representations of those actions, such as in film. This process is known as embodied simulation.

The more our senses are immersed simultaneously in the world, the more we feel present, connected to ourselves and to others, and therefore alive. Aesthetics, before being a theory, is an experience. How and where does one live it, in a world increasingly mediated by digital, interactive representations, particularly (but not exclusively) visual ones? We will seek to explore this together, through six key words that will guide us over the next six months.

This week, we begin with the concept of the Double – the space of the other, close enough not to be foreign but too “different,” and thus “distant,” to be identical: from the other self to the other world, the double represents the space of alternative possibility, the “as if,” of virtuality not yet actualised but present. From the Doppelgänger to the Digital Twin, from the Avatar to the nature of light, the double reminds us that reality eludes any single, one-dimensional definition, existing instead in a plurality of languages and symbols that watch us with familiar eyes – to be experienced with senses and neurons fully engaged. Aesthetically.

Thank you for being here. Enjoy the journey!


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