AML Lunch Colloquium

The ARTS AND MINDS LAB Lunch Colloquium is a platform to present current work, discuss empirical research on and philosophical accounts of art and transformation, aesthetic theory, museum experience, urbanism and other related fields. If you are interested in attending the AML Lunch Colloquium or even presenting your work, please reach out to contact@artsandmindslab.com.

If not marked otherwise all lunch colloquia take place in R.215, Luisenstraße 56 at noon!

Upcoming Lunch Colloquia

We are spontaneously kicking of our Lunch Colloquia again. Same time (noon) and room (215, and https://hu-berlin.zoom-x.de/my/fingerhut) , but now Fridays, once a month (look for updates here)

20.06.2025, 12pm (CET)

Joerg Fingerhut: “Aesthetic Emotions are Epistemic Emotions”

Abstract: In this paper, I argue that aesthetic emotions are epistemic emotions. This can help resolve an apparent contradiction that relates to the concept of aesthetic disinterestedness. On the one hand, disinterestedness—being free from desires, practical concerns, and intense psychological involvement—is often regarded as central to aesthetic experience and appreciation. On the other hand, we nonetheless affectively engage with the arts – with a strong motivation to explore, by developing attachments, and by vividly felt emotional episodes. I will argue for a distinct way to navigate this tension. Disinterestedness is not a phenomenal property of an aesthetic attitude or pleasure; rather, it concerns what an emotion is directed at, i.e. its semantic dimensions or formal object. This object in case of disinterestedness is then no pressing material or social concern, but rather cognition itself. It is in this sense that disinterestedness can be understood as central to aesthetic emotions, which, so my argument will go, are also epistemic emotions.

To empirically substantiate my philosophical argument, I draw on a Philosophically Guided supplementary Analysis (PGsA) of studies on art engagements. This analysis offers indirect support for the claim that aesthetic emotions—i.e., emotions that track artistic value—are inherently also epistemic emotions—i.e., they enhance cognitive processing and understanding. More specifically, the data support the wonder hypothesis, the idea that the emotion of wonder may serve as a central means of tracking artistic goodness. More broadly, the PGsA highlights the value of investigating fine-grained clusters of emotions and their relation to artistic value and cognitive expansion in theorizing about the transformative potential of art.

Keywords: Affective Aesthetic Cognitivism, Art, Beauty, Experimental Philosophy, Kant, Neuroaesthetics, Wonder Hypothesis

11.06.2024: Joerg Fingerhut on “Wonder and Interest as Epistemic Emotions”

I will review recent enactive accounts of art and propose aesthetic emotions as a necessary amendment to such accounts. My aim is to show two things. First, aesthetic emotions critically contribute to the aesthetic evaluation of artworks. Second, aesthetic emotions play a decisive role in the exploratory activity that artworks afford. We relate this activity to the cognitive styles of aesthetic emotions realized in their embodiment or somatic profile. By surveying recent empirical work on Wonder and Interets I hope to contribute to a critical (neuro-)aesthetics as part of an affective aesthetic cognitivism that is underrepresented in current debates.

Kara Walker Fons Americanus Tate Modern 2019. Photo: © Tate (Matt Greenwood)

Past Lunch Colloquia

14.05.2024: Joerg Fingerhut on “Empirical Urban Aesthetics”

Beauty is often rather ascribed to nature than to urban settings. I will outline a different line of thinking by tracing the freedom of potential of urban living related to the historical concept Stadtluft macht frei (urban air is freeing) to a concept of urban beauty. This will be related to studies in empirical aesthetics on architecture and urban planning. One claim will be that urban visual aesthetics always include elements of what could be called an impure or an embellished seeing, i.e. mental states that are informed by socio-cultural, embodied-affective, and enactive (i.e. generative) perception.

23.04.2024: Corinna Kühnapfel on “Art in Urban Spaces: Assessing the Psychological and Societal Effects of Two Public Art Exhibitions in Berlin”

I discuss two street-level art exhibitions in Berlin, exploring their impact on pedestrians’ emotions, values, and attitudes. One exhibition raised awareness of Venezuela’s socio-economic crisis, affecting visitors’ mood and hedonic values, while the other enhanced neighborhood connection and subjective well-being. Interviews with artists and curators revealed insights into emotional engagement and aesthetic evaluation, suggesting brief art engagements in urban settings can potentially transform moods, well-being, attitudes, and cognitive processing.

26.02.2024: Irene Senatore on Cetinic & She (2021): “Understanding and Creating Art with AI: Review and Outlook”

12.02.2024: Olivia Maegaard Nielsen on “Feminist Theories of Seeing” // Joerg Fingerhut on the upcoming introduction “Theorien des Sehens” (2024)

Joerg will present the German book “Theories of Seeing. An Introduction” (Theorien des Sehens zur Einführung) has been written together with Eva Schürmann (under contract with Junius for 2024). In preparing the book, we felt the need to avoid theoretical myopics of disciplines and schools to show how vision can be fruitfully addressed from multiple perspectives, each constituting a theory in its own right. Overall, we will give special emphasis to what we call impure seeing (introduction). Olivia will comment on chapters 2 “Epistemological Theories of Seeing” and 5 “Seeing as Praxis.”

29.01.2024: Julian Kutsche on Aumann (2022): “Art and Transformation”