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The Immaterialist

resilient living in a limitless world

Tag: aesthetic sustainability

November 24, 2022November 25, 2022

Rebel, Reframe, Rewild

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November 3, 2022November 3, 2022

You cannot step into the same river twice

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October 5, 2022October 6, 2022

Anti-trendy design: a hymn to rawness, flexibility and repairability

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September 20, 2022October 5, 2022

Whatever Lasts: Ongoing conversation with Isabelle McAllister

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August 23, 2022August 24, 2022

The core of sustainable living

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August 10, 2022August 11, 2022

Anti-trend report

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July 29, 2022August 3, 2022

The rewilded city

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January 18, 2022

Anti-trend, Resilient Design and the Art of Sustainable Living

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November 30, 2021

Interview #11: Bio-designer and Artist Zena Holloway

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When I talk about the importance of reducing consumption radically (which I often do), I am often asked: how can I do that? (which is of course a very fair question)

The process of rewilding nature involves creating the ideal circumstances and then taking a step back and letting nature adjust and mold it in its own way - which might not be anything like what you imagine. Maybe rewilded nature doesn’t look like nature we are acquainted with. Maybe it doesn't take shape as a rainforest or a savannah. Maybe rewilded nature forms new kinds of ecosystems and bionetworks that can ensure the survival of plants and animals in ways that we cannot even imagine. Maybe rewilded nature looks and acts in ways that enables new lifeforms to occur and that celebrate diversity by merging plants. Restoring is about reconstructing and reestablishing something that has been lost (due to decay, usage, weathering, climate changes, pollution, or something else that has induced change in a negative way). Rewilding is about opening up to both newness and oldness, to life that always flows, and to cycles that ensure durability. The process of rewilding (whether nature or human beings) is an ode to development, transformation and innovation; it doesn’t romanticize foregone eras nor does it involve slowing everything down to a state of non-movement. Rewilding is a celebration of the uncultivated way of life: of rawness and the beauty of imperfection, of blossoming, wild, free lifeforms, and of diversity and colorful, resilient rhythms.

According to philosopher F. Schiller, experiencing only beauty and harmony keeps us stuck in the concrete, perceptible, hands-on reality. Clinging to the familiar, the safe, and the immediately understandable—to “smoothness,” convenience, and ease—without seeking or daring to engage in challenges leads to stagnation—and a lack of freedom. However, the sublime, as opposed to the beautiful, which Schiller connects to chaotic or unbounded experiences, can shock us and wake us up from our slumber and thereby remind us of our full potential—as well as empower us to alter our ways if needed. It is of great importance to occasionally be confronted with the chaotic elements of reality. This is why Schiller underlines the importance of the sublime aesthetic experience: a single sublime shock can tear apart what Schiller calls “the veil of illusions” and can thus create a momentary experience of “true beauty,” which occasions clarity.

In a strange way, what I read coincided with what I was. I read about the raging sea as the sea raged, I read about the whispering forest as the forest whispered, and when I read that to pray was not to speak, but to become silent, that only in silence could God's kingdom be sought, God's kingdom came. God's kingdom was the moment. The trees, the forest, the sea, the lily, the bird, all existed in the moment. To them, there was no such thing as future or past. Nor any fear or terror. That was the first turning point. The second came when I read what followed: What happens to the bird does not concern it. It was the most radical thought I had ever known. It would free me from all pain, all suffering. What happens to me does not concern me.

My book Aesthetic Sustainability is still timely. Link in bio 🌿

New post at The Immaterialist Blog. On the development of my three raw, sustainable Rs: Rebel, Reframe and Rewild. Link in bio.

Is the 'function' of design objects mainly functional?

Isabelle: Of course I want to be free! But sometimes boundaries makes me feel better and makes a lot of things easier. But I also want those boundaries to be self-imposed. (...)

We need a new idea of luxury and status!

Once upon a time, there was an emperor who was extremely fond of roosters, and so one day he commissioned the most famous painter in all his realm to paint him a picture of a rooster. The painter replied that it would take him three years to accomplish this. The emperor was secretly rather annoyed, but in the end he agreed.

"... tell us about that time you and your friends jumped from the car bridge into the Yellowstone River, and one of your friends went through a dead cow that was floating in the water! He will laugh and tell them once again – my friend was cut up pretty badly by the cow’s ribs, he will say, and the boys’ eyes will be as big as teacups."

Your children are not your children.

What is sustainable design? Is it recycled, upcycled, circular, made from organic materials,...? Maybe - but mainly it is wild and raw!

We are visiting friends who live next to a farmer. There is a horse in a fold right next to their house. The kids want to feed it carrots. After a while of them being out there quietly I wander out, and to my horror I discover that my youngest son has entered the fold. I initially get scared - but then I take a deep breath and watch him. The other kids are scared and are shouting, but he sits down calmly on a tree stump and the horse walks up to him. It is enormous compared to him. But he is completely calm. Offers the horse his hands to smell and talks to it quietly. The horse smells him and then puts its big head next to his. They stay like this for a while and then the horse walks off, calmly. The other adults come running out and my friend tells me that the horse is not normally calm around people, especially not kids. My son gets up with a smile and tells us that the horse told him that it doesn't like noise and that that's why it gets scared of kids. I am in awe. How did he intuitively know what to do? I quickly realize that I know the answer to this question already. The answer is that we all know, we just forgot. He hasn't forgotten yet. He knows that he and the horse are one.

New post at The Immaterialist blog - with extract from my book Anti-trend.

I have previously written about the sublime aesthetic experience as opposed to the beautiful. The sublime experience is heavy in the sense that it contains discomfort and even distress. Despite hereof, sublime aesthetic experiences are praised throughout history as the most edifying of beauty experiences. There seems to be a consensus that the heaviest aesthetic experiences are the most substantial and memorable. Lightness in relation to aesthetics can be entertaining and enjoyable, and a welcome distraction in a busy life. Sometimes, being entertained without having to get too involved or affected can be just what you need. Lightness seems to be the balancing counterweight to worries and stress, so light entertainment is pursued as distraction and recreation. But there is nothing edifying about a light aesthetic experience, and when it has ended it is almost immediately forgotten and a new craving for light entertainment arises. When it comes to the consumptions of products it seems that aesthetic lightness leads straight to overconsumption. Unless some kind of bond is created between the receiver and the product, the lightness quickly turns into indifference, which leads to perceived obsolescence and hasty dismissal.

Einstein proved that nothing can be created or destroyed.

Aesthetic nourishment 🙏

To Plato a physical object can be considered beautiful if it clearly expresses the form or idea that gave birth to it. A beautiful chair, according to this way of thinking, is a chair that is clearly recognizable as being a chair and that is good at being a chair. There is a kind of precision to beaty. Beauty is precise and unambiguous in its expression. Beautiful physical objects are clearly expressed and decoded as what they are, at the same time as they are good at being what they are. Such a viewpoint contains the germ of a functionalist approach to thinking aesthetics. Functionalism, a term for defining the style and historical context of early 20th century design and architecture, is dominated by simplicity and objectivity, understood as form being subservient to function. “Form follows function” is a well-known adage ascribed to functionalism, which aimed to cleanse form of anything but the absolute most necessary elements. The famous phrase was uttered by the American architect Louis Sullivan, and it was in direct opposition to the organic decorative idiom of the previous art-nouveau period. The Bauhaus architect and furniture designer Marcel Breuer called his chairs “sitting machines” and hereby gestured to the ancient idea that a chair is beautiful if it is good at being what it is. A chair becomes a sitting machine insofar as it is good to sit in. The form and expression of an object are thus inferior to its function. This is the functionalist definition of beauty.

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