DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jul 1, 2015
The paper is an analysis of the garden at the National Library in Paris. The garden (Jardin-forêt... more The paper is an analysis of the garden at the National Library in Paris. The garden (Jardin-forêt) is desribed as uncanny for it belongs to a long tradition of gardening but at the same time it turns out to be its opposite. The uncanny effect seems to stem from the tension between artificiality and naturalness which is at least partly responsable for the lack of enthusiasm towards the garden as it is proved by a quotation from W.G. Sebald's novel Austerlitz. There is little doubt that Paris plays an important role in garden history, not only as a location for numerous historic gardens or parks, but also as a city where important contemporary gardens and parks have recently been created (e.g. Parc A. Citroën, Parc de la Villette, Jardin Atlantique, Parc de Bercy). Even though these recent projects have sparked criticism among garden critics, as usual-most have warmly embraced them. However, there is one exception, which is all the more interesting in that it forms the core of one of the landmarks of the French capital, namely the new building of the Bibliothèque national de France which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The building itself has generated many objections. Indeed, its gargantuan corridors and halls, never-ending rows of desks in reading rooms, and modernist austerity which verges on a sort of industrial style, may overwhelm an unprepared reader or visitor who may feel-as the main protagonist in W. G. Sebald's 2001 novel Austerlitz states-'insecure and humiliated by this Babylonian, dehumanized environment'. 1 The association with the ancient East is reinforced by, among other things, the fact-honorable in itself-that the building surrounds a central, inner green space which seems to be a reversed version of the hanging gardens c
The aim of the article is to suggest that one should think of gardens in terms of performances an... more The aim of the article is to suggest that one should think of gardens in terms of performances and not necessarily of architecture, painting or poetry, for it is possible to show that, strangely enough, gardens seem to share certain features with such performance arts. Such an approach seems fruitful as it allows one to grasp the fact that gardens combine culture and nature and to underline the role of the latter which cannot be reduced to sheer medium as it is traditionally done. The contention is that gardens should be treated more like ongoing, dynamic, partially planned process in which people can participate in different ways on a par with other inhuman "actors". Moreover, the category of performance seems to offer a useful frame favoring helping to solve certain problems inherent in traditional ways of thinking about gardens.
The aim of the article is to analyse seriality from the point of view of philosophical aesthetics... more The aim of the article is to analyse seriality from the point of view of philosophical aesthetics. Such an approach reveals that seriality has a normative character that is often overlooked by other disciplines. Seriality is unanimously considered to be one of the most characteristic traits of contemporary popular culture, but the field where it currently comes to the foreground is TV series. They have been studied within media theory and cultural studies for quite a long time, but they have been analysed mainly in terms of their production, distribution, and consumption across various and changing social contexts. Aiming to show how philosophy may contribute to “seriality studies”, the authors follow the agenda of philosophical aesthetics and conceive of seriality as a factor which defines the structure of TV series, their aesthetic properties, as well as their modes of reception. They claim that seriality is normative as it is possible to indicate what features a television show has to have in order to be a serial show as well as the manner in which it should be watched if it is to be experienced as a serial work.
The article is devoted to the work and thought of Jan Gwalbert Pawlikowski (1860-1939), one of th... more The article is devoted to the work and thought of Jan Gwalbert Pawlikowski (1860-1939), one of the first Polish thinkers, who wrote about the need to protect landscape. Through analyzing a number of Pawlikowski's texts and manifestos (including the essay Culture and nature from 1913), the author is able to examine Pawlikowski's "philosophy of landscape," which constituted an important part of this thinking about nature protection. Pawlikowski's theory is also compared to contemporary philosophical texts about landscape aesthetics (a.o. A. Berque, A. Carlson, P. d’Angelo, A. Roger).
The paper is an analysis of the garden at the National Library in Paris. The garden (Jardin-foret... more The paper is an analysis of the garden at the National Library in Paris. The garden (Jardin-foret) is desribed as uncanny for it belongs to a long tradition of gardening but at the same time it turns out to be its opposite. The uncanny effect seems to stem from the tension between artificiality and naturalness which is at least partly responsable for the lack of enthusiasm towards the garden as it is proved by a quotation from W.G. Sebald's novel 'Austerlitz'.
The aim of the article is to analyse the metaphor of the garden as a metaphor which allows one to... more The aim of the article is to analyse the metaphor of the garden as a metaphor which allows one to give an account of the conditions of the Earth subject to human actions and –more importantly –to sketch a utopian project of going beyond the Anthropocene. A new understanding of the garden modifies the traditional view of it as a paradise, where a harmony between humans and nature reigns. Today, gardens are often approached as places of cooperation, negotiation as well as of tensions and conflicts among human beings and other-than-human beings, that is as places where numerous relationships create a human and other-than-human community. The analyses will start with an interpretation of Alan Sonfist’s Time Landscape (1978–), a public park in Manhattan that was conceived of as a reconstruction of the local precolonial landscape and at the same time as its monument. Sonfist’s work is a good illustration of how the metaphor of the garden is nowadays interpreted and –I contend –it may be a...
The aim of the article is to discuss community gardens as works of public art. Even if artistic s... more The aim of the article is to discuss community gardens as works of public art. Even if artistic status of gardens has been widely recognized, it is usually taken into account when historic gardens and parks or works of contemporary landscapes architects are concerned. However, there are good reasons to approach community gardens as artworks, as well. First, aligning community gardens with contemporary art is honorific, in the sense that it shows that they may be considered in another way than seeing them only as vernacular art, significant because of its social and political dimension. Second, in spite of their allegedly edenic character, community gardens are very often contested spaces, while the conflicts may be sparked by, among other things, the community garden aesthetics. In order to recognize community gardens as art it is useful to refer to new genre public art and not to "paradigmatic arts" such as architecture or painting.
This paper discusses gardening as a practice that may be useful in reconsidering how landscape bo... more This paper discusses gardening as a practice that may be useful in reconsidering how landscape boundaries can be experienced. The assumption is that one should think of landscapes as "entities" which are material, but at the same time may be said to exist only insofar as they are experienced by humans. As such, they are always bounded. In order to show how gardening may be helpful in shaping the boundaries of landscapes two approaches to gardening are discussed: one treats gardening as a model of creating order and eliminating all that which is seen as alien to it (Zygmunt Bauman), the other-claims that gardening requires respecting nature (Gilles Clément).
<jats:p>Krytyczne omówienie książki Marty Olesik "Kwadrat przebity włócznią. René Desc... more <jats:p>Krytyczne omówienie książki Marty Olesik "Kwadrat przebity włócznią. René Descartes, Georges de La Tour, nowoczesne doświadczenie ciała i zmysłowa praktyka abstrakcji" (Warszawa, 2020).</jats:p>
The aim of the article is to present historical gardens as phenomena inevitably pervaded by an on... more The aim of the article is to present historical gardens as phenomena inevitably pervaded by an ongoing clash of values. The conflict stems from the twofold character of gardens where art (or in broader terms: culture) and nature are combined, which results in a tension between the tendency to remain static and durable that human culture seeks, and the changeability and dynamics that are inherent in nature. This conflict can be characterized by referring to a theory proposed by Austrian art historian Alois Riegl, one of the founders of modern monument restoration theory who identified three types of values associated with monuments: historical value, age value, and present-day values. What is more, one can assume that gardens can be treated as particular tokens of landscape. Thus, the conflict of values within a garden may be seen as a more limited example of the same clash going on at the more general level oflandscape. The argument is illustrated by a short case study of the recent...
Technicznym poprzednikiem aparatu fotograficznego jest camera ob-scura (il. 1). Urządzenie to z... more Technicznym poprzednikiem aparatu fotograficznego jest camera ob-scura (il. 1). Urządzenie to znane od starożytności, wykorzystywa-ne przez średniowiecznych filozofów i szeroko stosowane od XVI w., by 200 lat później osiągnąć apogeum swej popularności stanowi owoc ...
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jul 1, 2015
The paper is an analysis of the garden at the National Library in Paris. The garden (Jardin-forêt... more The paper is an analysis of the garden at the National Library in Paris. The garden (Jardin-forêt) is desribed as uncanny for it belongs to a long tradition of gardening but at the same time it turns out to be its opposite. The uncanny effect seems to stem from the tension between artificiality and naturalness which is at least partly responsable for the lack of enthusiasm towards the garden as it is proved by a quotation from W.G. Sebald's novel Austerlitz. There is little doubt that Paris plays an important role in garden history, not only as a location for numerous historic gardens or parks, but also as a city where important contemporary gardens and parks have recently been created (e.g. Parc A. Citroën, Parc de la Villette, Jardin Atlantique, Parc de Bercy). Even though these recent projects have sparked criticism among garden critics, as usual-most have warmly embraced them. However, there is one exception, which is all the more interesting in that it forms the core of one of the landmarks of the French capital, namely the new building of the Bibliothèque national de France which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The building itself has generated many objections. Indeed, its gargantuan corridors and halls, never-ending rows of desks in reading rooms, and modernist austerity which verges on a sort of industrial style, may overwhelm an unprepared reader or visitor who may feel-as the main protagonist in W. G. Sebald's 2001 novel Austerlitz states-'insecure and humiliated by this Babylonian, dehumanized environment'. 1 The association with the ancient East is reinforced by, among other things, the fact-honorable in itself-that the building surrounds a central, inner green space which seems to be a reversed version of the hanging gardens c
The aim of the article is to suggest that one should think of gardens in terms of performances an... more The aim of the article is to suggest that one should think of gardens in terms of performances and not necessarily of architecture, painting or poetry, for it is possible to show that, strangely enough, gardens seem to share certain features with such performance arts. Such an approach seems fruitful as it allows one to grasp the fact that gardens combine culture and nature and to underline the role of the latter which cannot be reduced to sheer medium as it is traditionally done. The contention is that gardens should be treated more like ongoing, dynamic, partially planned process in which people can participate in different ways on a par with other inhuman "actors". Moreover, the category of performance seems to offer a useful frame favoring helping to solve certain problems inherent in traditional ways of thinking about gardens.
The aim of the article is to analyse seriality from the point of view of philosophical aesthetics... more The aim of the article is to analyse seriality from the point of view of philosophical aesthetics. Such an approach reveals that seriality has a normative character that is often overlooked by other disciplines. Seriality is unanimously considered to be one of the most characteristic traits of contemporary popular culture, but the field where it currently comes to the foreground is TV series. They have been studied within media theory and cultural studies for quite a long time, but they have been analysed mainly in terms of their production, distribution, and consumption across various and changing social contexts. Aiming to show how philosophy may contribute to “seriality studies”, the authors follow the agenda of philosophical aesthetics and conceive of seriality as a factor which defines the structure of TV series, their aesthetic properties, as well as their modes of reception. They claim that seriality is normative as it is possible to indicate what features a television show has to have in order to be a serial show as well as the manner in which it should be watched if it is to be experienced as a serial work.
The article is devoted to the work and thought of Jan Gwalbert Pawlikowski (1860-1939), one of th... more The article is devoted to the work and thought of Jan Gwalbert Pawlikowski (1860-1939), one of the first Polish thinkers, who wrote about the need to protect landscape. Through analyzing a number of Pawlikowski's texts and manifestos (including the essay Culture and nature from 1913), the author is able to examine Pawlikowski's "philosophy of landscape," which constituted an important part of this thinking about nature protection. Pawlikowski's theory is also compared to contemporary philosophical texts about landscape aesthetics (a.o. A. Berque, A. Carlson, P. d’Angelo, A. Roger).
The paper is an analysis of the garden at the National Library in Paris. The garden (Jardin-foret... more The paper is an analysis of the garden at the National Library in Paris. The garden (Jardin-foret) is desribed as uncanny for it belongs to a long tradition of gardening but at the same time it turns out to be its opposite. The uncanny effect seems to stem from the tension between artificiality and naturalness which is at least partly responsable for the lack of enthusiasm towards the garden as it is proved by a quotation from W.G. Sebald's novel 'Austerlitz'.
The aim of the article is to analyse the metaphor of the garden as a metaphor which allows one to... more The aim of the article is to analyse the metaphor of the garden as a metaphor which allows one to give an account of the conditions of the Earth subject to human actions and –more importantly –to sketch a utopian project of going beyond the Anthropocene. A new understanding of the garden modifies the traditional view of it as a paradise, where a harmony between humans and nature reigns. Today, gardens are often approached as places of cooperation, negotiation as well as of tensions and conflicts among human beings and other-than-human beings, that is as places where numerous relationships create a human and other-than-human community. The analyses will start with an interpretation of Alan Sonfist’s Time Landscape (1978–), a public park in Manhattan that was conceived of as a reconstruction of the local precolonial landscape and at the same time as its monument. Sonfist’s work is a good illustration of how the metaphor of the garden is nowadays interpreted and –I contend –it may be a...
The aim of the article is to discuss community gardens as works of public art. Even if artistic s... more The aim of the article is to discuss community gardens as works of public art. Even if artistic status of gardens has been widely recognized, it is usually taken into account when historic gardens and parks or works of contemporary landscapes architects are concerned. However, there are good reasons to approach community gardens as artworks, as well. First, aligning community gardens with contemporary art is honorific, in the sense that it shows that they may be considered in another way than seeing them only as vernacular art, significant because of its social and political dimension. Second, in spite of their allegedly edenic character, community gardens are very often contested spaces, while the conflicts may be sparked by, among other things, the community garden aesthetics. In order to recognize community gardens as art it is useful to refer to new genre public art and not to "paradigmatic arts" such as architecture or painting.
This paper discusses gardening as a practice that may be useful in reconsidering how landscape bo... more This paper discusses gardening as a practice that may be useful in reconsidering how landscape boundaries can be experienced. The assumption is that one should think of landscapes as "entities" which are material, but at the same time may be said to exist only insofar as they are experienced by humans. As such, they are always bounded. In order to show how gardening may be helpful in shaping the boundaries of landscapes two approaches to gardening are discussed: one treats gardening as a model of creating order and eliminating all that which is seen as alien to it (Zygmunt Bauman), the other-claims that gardening requires respecting nature (Gilles Clément).
<jats:p>Krytyczne omówienie książki Marty Olesik "Kwadrat przebity włócznią. René Desc... more <jats:p>Krytyczne omówienie książki Marty Olesik "Kwadrat przebity włócznią. René Descartes, Georges de La Tour, nowoczesne doświadczenie ciała i zmysłowa praktyka abstrakcji" (Warszawa, 2020).</jats:p>
The aim of the article is to present historical gardens as phenomena inevitably pervaded by an on... more The aim of the article is to present historical gardens as phenomena inevitably pervaded by an ongoing clash of values. The conflict stems from the twofold character of gardens where art (or in broader terms: culture) and nature are combined, which results in a tension between the tendency to remain static and durable that human culture seeks, and the changeability and dynamics that are inherent in nature. This conflict can be characterized by referring to a theory proposed by Austrian art historian Alois Riegl, one of the founders of modern monument restoration theory who identified three types of values associated with monuments: historical value, age value, and present-day values. What is more, one can assume that gardens can be treated as particular tokens of landscape. Thus, the conflict of values within a garden may be seen as a more limited example of the same clash going on at the more general level oflandscape. The argument is illustrated by a short case study of the recent...
Technicznym poprzednikiem aparatu fotograficznego jest camera ob-scura (il. 1). Urządzenie to z... more Technicznym poprzednikiem aparatu fotograficznego jest camera ob-scura (il. 1). Urządzenie to znane od starożytności, wykorzystywa-ne przez średniowiecznych filozofów i szeroko stosowane od XVI w., by 200 lat później osiągnąć apogeum swej popularności stanowi owoc ...
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