Aesthetics and Homo Mobilis

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DIALOGUE AND UNIVERSALISMNo. 1112/2003

Ossi Naukkarinen

AESTHETICS AND HOMO MOBILI S

ABSTRACT

Mobility is one of the key concepts of our contemporary culture. Millions of peoplecommute, goods and information circulate globally, and mobile technology is a powerfuleconomic and cultural force.

Many tend to think like Joseph Margolis that aesthetics is the most strategically

placed philosophical disciplines of our time. Still, aestheticians have not been very

active in analysing movement.

Yet it is evident that activities of the homo mobilis have interesting aesthetic aspectswhich are also pivotal for understanding these activities. It seems clear, e.g., that it isaesthetically rewarding to drive a good car and this affects how cars are designed and

why people often choose driving instead of walking. All this has many influences on oureveryday life.

The aim of this paper is to search guidelines with the help of which aesthetics ofmovement and mobility could be discussed. What does it mean that it is aestheticallyrewarding to move in a certain way? How could it be described and taken into accountwhen planning an environment? To make the article more concrete the theme is ap-

proached through real-world examples, especially through art photographs.Key words: applied aesthetics; environment; mobility; movement; photography.

In the second announcement of the XVth International Congress of Aesthet-ics,Aesthetics in the 21st Century, the organizers of the congress wish to ob-tain, through collaborative effort, a view of the potential future of aesthetics.

This paper is written with this in mind. Thus it contains suggestions, questions

and ideas about future possibilities rather than final answers.

MOBILE CULTURE

Mobility is one of the key concepts of our contemporary culture. Millions ofpeople commute and travel abroad daily. Refugees flow from one violent area

to another. Tourism is one of the busiest industries in the worldwith congress


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164 Ossi Naukkarinen

tourism, which David Lodge describes so well in his novel Small World, beingone of its curious sub-categories. Also, goods and information circulate glob-ally, and motor vehicles and information and communications technology areproduced non-stop to be used in endless traffic and information jams. Peopleand everything around them are always on the go, and it also seems that whilewe are on the move, we want to be able to take care of more and more errandswith our laptops and mobile phones. This, in turn, makes mobile technology apowerful economic and cultural force, and nomadism has become a topicalmetaphor.Panta rei, as Heraclitus put it.

Largely due to this increased volume of mobility, which has its own compli-cated political, technological and economic reasons, our living worldlandscapes, cities, even the climate and peopleis changing rapidly. Cities are

growing, rural areas are being depopulated, airports and highways are getting

busier and busier, and the whole world is becoming more and more polluted.

There seems to be no reason to think that the tempo of these changes will slow

down, either. Moreover, even if we continue the process started by the Indus-

trial Revolution and the invention of the railway system in the 19th century, 1the ways we experience the world through our mobile phones, fast cars andsuper fast Internet accesses are probably something very different from whatpeople in the 19th century experienced. On one hand the volume and speed ofmovement are simply much higher, on the other we have become accustomed toforms and means of a moving lifestyle that were unimaginable a century oreven a couple of decades ago. For example, even if over one hundred years agothere was talk of the reduction of space through the growth of speed, the notionhas become even more topical because of the much higher speeds used, theultimate example being movement of information at the speed of light via opti-cal cables. Movement and mobility are phenomena that have major environ-mental and experiential impacts and thus call for penetrating analyses frommany angles.

At the same time many tend to think like Joseph Margolis that aesthetics isthe most strategically placed philosophical disciplines of our time.2 Some evenclaim that especially the contemporary Western culture has been aestheticizedto the extent that aesthetic factors like art-likeness, beauty or sensuousness

each interpreted in many ways, of coursenow direct peoples attitudes, ac-

tions and choices very effectively in many areas of daily life, science, politics,

business, sports, jurisprudence, religion etc.3 Something like this is also com-monly realized outside philosophical discourse, for example in marketing and

1 Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Geschichte der Eisenbahnreise (Carl Hanser Verlag 1977).2 Joseph Margolis,Art and Philosophy (Humanities Press 1980), pp. vvi.3 Wolfgang Welsch, sthetisches Denken (Stuttgart: Reclam 1990); Mike Featherstone: Con-

sumer Culture and Postmodernism (Sage Publications 1991); Gerhard Schulze, Die Erlebnisge-

sellschaft(Campus Verlag 1993).


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Aesthetics and Homo Mobilis 165

design, and this results in constant aesthetic reworking of the everyday envi-ronment. In the end, however, be the contemporary status of aesthetic factorswhat it may, when compared to other times and factors there is no doubt of its

importance: aesthetics forms a focal part of human culture, even if it is oftenovershadowed by economics, politics and sheer indifference. Thus one wouldthink that philosophical aesthetics plays an active role in analyzing the mostimportant phenomena of our time, including movement and mobility of people,goods and information.

There are excellent studies and whole traditions of research on many aspectsof mobility and movement, e.g., those of social sciences concentrating on so-cial, economic and statistic factors of migration and global business4 and thoseof physics. In fact, in the history of western philosophy analyses of movementhave most often been connected precisely with physics and dynamics. One ob-

vious reason for this is that Aristotle dealt with movement in hisPhysics as oneform of kinesis, the other forms or categories of it being change in quality andquantity, coming-to-be and passing-away. All of these are forms of change, andin the case of movement the change has to do with location.5

For some reason, contrary to what one would think, studies of the aestheticsof movement and mobility, especially in everyday environments, are not verycommon. This does not mean that the aesthetics of movement has not beendealt with at all. There are at least two routes to do this.

First, there is the route of environmental aesthetics and other branches ofphilosophy dealing with aesthetic issues in everyday surroundings. It is interest-ing that environmental aesthetics has had a lot to say about places, spaces andsites,6 but less about different forms of movement. Still it is clear that as con-ceptions of a place, which are often to a large extent aesthetically set, affecthow it is experienced, treated and valued, the same can be supposed to be thecase as regards movement. As it is a fact that people are not only situated in andrelated to places but also to different forms of movementdriving a car, walk-ing, flying, migrating, travelling abroad, commuting, skateboarding, surfing the

Internetit is important to understand also these relationships. What sort of an

identity a way we move around has in our thinking affects how we treat it, as

4 Manuel Castells, The Information Age, vols. 13, (Blackwell 19961998); Scott Lash andJohn Urry,Economies of Signs and Space (Sage Publications 1994).

5On Aristotles concept of kinesis and on Aristotles influence on the development of (phi-

losophy of) physics see Mary Louise Gill and James G. Lennox (eds.), Self-Motion, From Aris-totle to Newton (Princeton University Press 1994); Julian B. Barbour, Absolute or Relative Mo-tion? Volume 1: The Discovery of Dynamics (Cambridge University Press 1989); Peter K.Machamer and Robert G. Turnbull (eds.), Motion and Time, Space and Matter(Ohio State Uni-versity Press 1976); Friedrich Kaulbach, Der philosophische Begriff der Bewegung (BhlauVerlag 1965).

6 For example: Daniel Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels (eds.): The Iconography of Landscape,Cambridge University Press 1988; Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci (Rizzoli International

Publications1980); Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place (University of Minnesota Press 1977).


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well as its prerequisites and causes. Moreover, its identity is often aestheticallyqualified so that a way of moving can be considered beautiful, ugly, cool, nice,dull, etc. Such conceptions are concretely manifested in everyday surroundingsin the form of roads, vehicles and actions and they also have considerable eco-nomic, ecological and other consequences. For example, following FilippoTommaso Marinettis ideals leads one to very different results than following

those of Henry Thoreau.7

The other route to deal with aesthetics of movement can be found in art andphilosophy of art. In dance and dance studies, sometimes combined with sportsstudies, it has naturally been a pivotal theme throughout the fields history,

8 andmany visual art forms such as kinetic art and cinema, as well as studies of thesehave provided valuable insights into the subject. Moreover, some ways of mov-ing such as being on the road, wandering in nature and flaneur-life in the cityhave been much used metaphors in fiction and also in aesthetic-philosophicalliterature.9

I will take a third route by combining the first and the second, which natu-rally intertwine in other contexts, as well. In the third section of my article Iwill give examples of how artistic photographs dealing with movement can be apart of a larger environmental discourse, providing their point of view on theaesthetics of movement. I will also deal with the question of how such artworkscan be paired with philosophical aesthetics and why this should be done. Istress that ideas developed in the context of art, however, are not necessarilyimmediately transportable to our concrete, non-fictional living world withoutcarefully considered re-interpretations. Still I believe that they can have an im-portant role in forming conceptions about movement in general; as a matter offact, I believe that given the central stand of art in our culture their role is quiteessential.10 What we need, in any case, is better understanding of the aestheticsof movement. It is evident that the activities of homo mobilis have interesting

7 These and related issues have been dealt with by such writers as Michel de Certeau

Linvention du quotidien 1. Arts de faire (Gallimard 1980), Wolfgang Schivelbusch Geschichteder Eisenbahnreise (Carl Hanser Verlag 1977), Roger Trancik, Finding Lost Space (Van No-

strand 1986); and Paul Virilio,Esthtique de la disparition (ditions galile 1980).8 On this history see David Best,Philosophy and Human Movement(George Allen and Unwin1978); and Roger Copeland and Marshall Cohen (eds.), What is Dance? (Oxford University Press1983).

9 A good overview, in Finnish, can be found in Matkakirja [Travel Book] edited by Marja-Leena Hakkarainen and Tero Koistinen (Joensuun yliopisto 1998). See also Kunstforum,

sthetik des Reisens, no. 136, May 1997;Atlas der Knstlerreisen, no. 137, August 1997.10 This can be compared to what Stephen Daniels and Denis Cosgrove write about the relation

of landscapes and their representations: To understand a built landscape, say an eighteenth-

century English park, it is usually necessary to understand written and verbal representations of it,

not as illustrations, images standing outside it, but as constituent images of its meaning or mean-

ings. Stephen Daniels, Denis Cosgrove, The Inocography of Landscape (Cambridge University

Press 1988), p. 1.


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aesthetic aspects, which are pivotal if we want to understand these activities atall. To take still another example from the everyday life it seems clear that it isaesthetically rewarding to drive a good car, and that this affects how cars and

roads are designed and why people often choose driving instead of walking. Onthe other hand, even in the early history of the railroad train journeys were of-ten considered boring. This, in turn, made people want to read in trains, and thisfact soon lead to growing sales of newspapers and literature. But what, in fact,is the aesthetics of a good car or a boring train? Art, even if it is not identicalwith the aesthetic, can be used in making sense of this.

APPLIED AESTHETICS

Before I turn to the role of art in the discourse concerning the aesthetics of

movement I say some words about the role of philosophical aesthetics in it.Why exactly should we understand movement from the point of view of aes-thetics and how should this understanding be used?

One evident answer is just to refer to our general will to know and under-stand, to our intellectual curiosity. This may be a part of the answer but Iopenly question whether it is enough. I am after knowledge that can be used incontexts like concrete environmental planning, engineering and administration.Shortly: how can aesthetics be used in shaping and forming the environment welive in? If movement is an important phenomenon structuring our living worldand if it is often approached aesthetically, how can theoretical knowledge ofaesthetics be used in affecting movement, conceptions of it and its reasons andcauses so that our living world will be improved? Aesthetics adopting such arole has sometimes been called applied aesthetics11 and it comes close to theway of thinking of pragmatist aesthetics that has been described by John Deweyand, in his footsteps, Richard Shusterman.

In general, philosophical aesthetics can bring conceptual clarity and good,critical formulations of central problems, concepts and various possible an-swers into the discourse on movement and environments. Also, aestheticiansshould know the history of their field and be able to adapt its material to thepresent. All this can and should serve other interested parties such as politi-cians, planners, engineers, researchers and the like.

The field of the aesthetics of movement is naturally extremely vast andraises many general sub-questions, including the following:

1. How do the aesthetic aspects of movement differ from other aspects ofmovement and how can they be identified?

11

Yrj Sepnmaa, Applied Aesthetics, in Ossi Naukkarinen and Olli Immonen (eds.), Artand Beyond (International Institute of Applied Aesthetics 1995); Ronald W. Hepburne, CanThere Be Such a Thing as Applied Aesthetics? at http://www.lpt.fi/io/iiaa (International Institute

of Applied Aesthetics). For an extensive bibliography of literature related to applied aesthetics see

also J. Douglas Porteous,Environmental Aesthetics (Routledge 1996).


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2. What is in our focus when dealing with the aesthetics of movement? Ob-jects, processes or something else?

3. From whose point of view should we approach movement in differentcontexts? From that of the mover, the onlooker or from some other point ofview?

4. How do we perceive movement? By seeing, hearing, feeling or otherwise?5. How do we refer to movement and identify it? With words, pictures, other

movements or otherwise?6. How is movement related to other forms of change?7. What (philosophical) causes do different answers to these questions have?

The task of philosopher is to answer these and related questions. However,the problem often is how could we get those other interested parties pay atten-tion to the answers and to the many-sidedness of aesthetic issues in general.The problem is also how to keep economic or political issues from dominatingthe discussion of movement. When one talks about affecting concrete phenom-ena and thus making the world better, it is not typically enough if one is a goodphilosopher by philosophers standards. One has to be able to open up the rele-

vant points in ways that are understandable and interesting to as many as possi-

ble. This means, broadly speaking, taking notice of marketing, politics and

rhetoricsor being a propagandist if you like. Also, it almost inevitably means

breaking with the ideal of neutral, purely descriptive and detached aesthetics.

Here, one typically has an opinion and defends it, actively engaging in ones

social environment.

This opening up of relevant issues can probably be done in many ways, but

now I only follow one path. What interests me now is combining art and phi-

losophical aesthetics in forming conceptions and representations of environ-

ments and of movement in them. How can the aesthetics of movement be made

perceivable and understandable using this combination?

PICTURING MOBILITY

It is time for examples. First, I take two photographs by Tapio HeikkilaFinnish photographer, researcher and government official (senior adviser) at the

Ministry of the Environment. Heikkil often takes pictures for the use of land-

scape management and administration in particular: as one part of his job as

official he has, together with his colleagues, developed a detailed system for

documenting the Finnish agri-landscape and its changes. One point of the

documentation is to reveal the value of certain landscapes to politicians and

officials who are in responsible for creating systems of conservation and for

concrete decisions concerning the use of these areas. The value is often mostly

aesthetic, although not only: contrary to what Ludwig Wittgenstein might say,

it is typical to call a landscape beautiful, and its beauty is one important reason


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for protecting it. In Finland preserving beautiful landscapes and nature is set asa goal even in the law, for example in the new Nature Conservation Act of1997.12 Politicians and others in power do not necessarily have a possibility to

visit areas and sites whose destiny is in their hands, and photographs can helpthem form an impression of the subject.

Heikkils pictures can be seen as statements: he shows how a particular

landscape looks. But they are not neutral any more than any other photograph

is. In this context it is important to notice that Heikkil, first, often clearly looks

for aesthetically interesting subjects and, second, his way of taking pictures is

considered to be of very high quality; he has won several awards, the last one

being WWF Finlands prize for the Nature Book of the Year 2000. In addition,

he has published books and organized exhibitions on his work. Thus I simply

take his work as aesthetically rewarding and as art. The pictures chosen for this

paper show traces and possibilitiesof movement in a certain environment andreveal something of the aesthetics of movement.

The first one from the year 1993 (fig. 1) is a picture of an old country roadin the southeastern part of Finland, near Savonlinna. The picture seems to sug-gest that it is a good road, at least aesthetically. How does the picture conveythis? Before we can even start to answer the question we have to specify it:From whose point of view and in what way does the road seem to be good aes-thetically? How do we perceive its aesthetics? How do we actually perceivemovement in this case? I do not try to answer these questions in detail here butpoint only to a couple of directions to go in search for the answers.

The country road with its colors and forms is surely nice to look at as a pho-tograph, but does it feel good to drive or walk along it? I happen to know thatparts of it are almost unsafe to drive by car, but it is an ideal for biking if onehas a mountain bike. It is fairly quiet, its up-and-down rhythm is pleasing and itprovides very beautiful sights, sounds and odors. Also, its hills are so steep andlong that they really challenge anyone who wants to climb them with tent,sleeping bag and other camping equipment on a bicycle; if one succeeds thefeeling is great. Movement is first of all felt. This suggests that its aestheticvalue is not only in its visual aspects but also in its kinetic, olfactory and otheraspects. In this case we do not focus on visual objects especially, and the pointof view, or point of experience rather, cannot be that of the onlooker only.

Moreover, we do not perhaps focus on any kind of object; instead we are a

part of the environment.13

12 In Finnish even the word kaunis (beautiful) is used in the act. In English the official descrip-

tion of the act reads like this: The act introduces a new programme designed to protect areas of

valuable landscapes in areas where human activity has greatly shaped the landscape for centuries.

There areas are mainly selected for their aesthetic value. . . See http://www.vyh.

fi/eng/environ/legis/nature.htm.13 I am aware of the fact that what can be considered aesthetic is a tough philosophical problem

even if I ignore it here. For example, can kinetic experiences be aesthetic and how? I have dealt


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I believe that it is easy admit that moving along such a road is aestheticallypleasing in many ways. Still, such roads are rare and getting even more so. Themain reason for this is that they are slow, laborious to maintain and unsafe forcars. This notion takes us to the other photograph.

The other picture from the year 2000 (fig. 2) is of a construction site of anew highway through a rural area in southwestern Finland, near Turku. Thesituation does not seem good. An ancient agricultural landscape will be tornapart by a huge highway that does not fit into the area visually or otherwise atall. To my mind, what we see now and in the future is ugly, disharmonious anddull. What we will hear is pure noise. Yet the highway will be built. But again,we have to ask about the aesthetics of movement more specifically. If the routeand movement on it does not look or sound good to me, could it feel good andto whom? At least it is obvious that it is built for car drivers. The highway willbe fast and safe, and it probably feels kinetically rewarding to drive along it ifone has a good, fast car or motorcycle. Again, the aesthetics of movement doesnot rest on visual aspects only.

Both pictures are visual, of course, but they are able to refer to other aspectsof experience as well if one has any experience with the same sort of roads.When we see the pictures we can almost feel, smell and hear something;through the pictures we feel the roads or at least are urged to do so.14 Thisawareness of all of the sensual and emotional elements of the experience chal-lenges traditional philosophical aesthetics and makes one search for new meth-ods of philosophizing. Furthermore, it challenges one-sided planning and ad-ministration practices. How, for example, should we refer to the feeling oftreadling up a steep hill so that such experiences could be taken in considera-tion in planning? The crucial point is that we cannot even discuss whether theyshould be taken in consideration in the first place if we do not have ways torefer to them in discussion. Perhaps this can be done by pictures, words or per-haps with both, together or separately. We should explore these possibilitieswhen we discuss whether and how we value the forms of movement made pos-sible by roads like those in Heikkils photographs.

A photograph can be a very effective kick-starter of this kind of discussion

but it is typically not enough in itself. Why is this so? I would say that Heikkil

likes old country roads, questions the whole idea of highways, and uses his

with such questions in my bookAesthetics of the Unavoidable (International Institute of AppliedAesthetics 1998) and my solution can be described historical-institutional. The notion that the onewho experiences something aesthetically is part of the environment experienced and not a distantobserver is typical in environmental aesthetics. See Arnold Berleant,Aesthetics and Environment,(Temple University Press 1992); Yrj Sepnmaa, The Beauty of Environment, Annales Acade-miae Scientiarum Fennicae, ser. B, tom. 234 (Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia 1986).

14 This, also, could be taken as a philosophical problem and be approached as one concerningrepresentation or contextualizing pictures, for example. Interesting insights into these questionsare presented by W. J. T. Mitchell in Picture Theory (The University of Chicago Press 1994) and

by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen inReading Images (Routledge 1996).


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photographs to support his opinions. But how can all this be seen and why doeshe have such opinions? The pictures need to be accompanied by words to give abetter idea of this. Heikkil does this in such books as the WWF-prize winning

Suomalainen kulttuurimaisema [The Finnish Cultural Landscape] (Tammi2000), and my interpretation can be seen as an additional effort.

Lets look at these two photos again.

To begin with, the photograph of the construction site was taken from a long

distance: Heikkil did not even want to go near it. It was taken on a gray, per-

haps early winter day, which are generally considered unpleasant in Finland.

Also, it was taken at a phase of the construction work when everything seemed

jagged and unfinished. The country road, in turn, was photographed on a warm

June day as a close-up. It is plain to see that the road has been used for decades

or centuries, which emphasizes how well the road sits in its environment. The

photographs show the country road as unified, harmonious and well-adapted to

its surroundings and the highway as its opposite. One could imagine pictures

where the situation is the other way round but Heikkil wants to show it like

this, and I admit that I support his choice.

When one starts to speak in these terms, one cannot lean on photographs

alone but has to take notice of the entire cultural context. One could add that

highways represent a lifestyle and attitude in which speed and effectiveness are

highly valued and where pollution or noise is not a serious problem. They rep-

resent a certain ideology or worldview. One could perhaps say with Terry

Eagleton15 that an ideology is an ideology in the deep sense only when someoneadopts it aesthetically. One has to actually like and support its aesthetic mani-festations, have taste for it; it is not a coincidence that totalitarian systems arevery strict about their symbols, uniforms, parades and artworks. Here, Heikkiland highway people simply have differing ideologies and aesthetics as parts orindicators of them. It is important to notice that both roads and both ways ofmoving have their aesthetics and that the value of this aesthetics is tied up witha wider worldview. Both are good from a certain viewpoint. When making de-cisions about traffic systems these ideologies collide and they need to be ana-lyzed in discussion. The reason why aesthetic aspects should also be discussedin depth is exactly their importance for worldviews. Dealing with aestheticquestions is a way of dealing with worldviews, and by influencing conceptionsof aesthetic values one may affect conceptions of the whole. Typically, if some-thing is claimed to be good or bad aesthetically it is claimed to be ethicallygood or bad, as well. In this sense, at least, aesthetics and ethics belong to-gether.

In his article Can There Be such a Thing as Applied Aesthetics?16RonaldW. Hepburn sketches how philosophical aesthetics can be useful in public

15 Terry Eagleton: The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Blackwell 1990).16

See at http://www.lpt.fi/io/iiaa.


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deliberations and debates on land-use and appreciation and other similar con-texts. The central idea is that aesthetics can analyze, with the help of its tradi-

tion, the alternative points of view that are relevant in a particular discussion

these connected with a wider worldview, of course. Hepburn mentions seven

fairly common aesthetic sets of principles that have a strong history and can

be relevantly applied in various discourses. These are (1) the triad of diversity,

individuality and particularity, (2) expression, (3) unifying of a complex, (4)

freedom of imagination, (5) contemplativity, (6) heightened awareness of con-

sciousness and (7) sublimity. There are certainly more of such sets of principles

and they all can be used in giving context-specific answers to the general ques-

tion concerning aesthetics of movement mentioned above. It is easy to see that

they could be used as the basis for an in-depth discussion of the aesthetics of

movement in Heikkils photographs, as well. Both the pictures themselves and

environments they represent can be approached by asking how are they related,

e.g., to particularity, contemplativity, sublimity or beauty and to other (past)

cases also connected with the same sets of principles? All this, of course,

comes close to what is done in normal art criticism all the time, although not

very often with a special focus on movement.

In any case, I want to underscore that photographs like Heikkils or other

artistic means are urgently needed to find concrete solutions to environmental

problems, even if they are not strong and specific enough to stand without ver-

bal aesthetic analysis. The power of these pictures is in their ability to make the

aesthetic (and other) values concretely perceivable and emotionally touching. It

would be practically impossible to achieve anything of the like, say, through a

regular road map.

I take another example. Petri Anttonen is also a Finnish photographer, but

his work is very different from that of Heikkil. His pictures often deal with

actual movement, flow of time and methods of depicting it with the help of still

photographs. Thus his work continues along the path made by such early pio-

neers of movement photography as Etienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muy-

bridge.

Anttonen has installed a special mechanical (analogical, not digital) system

in his camera, using a slowly sliding focal-plane shutter to produce his pictures.

Instead of capturing the frozen moments typical in photography, Anttonens

photographs depict on a single surface an unbroken continuum of moments, the

flow of time, and movement. Normally, time layers in pictures taken with long

exposure times are inscribed on top of one another again and again. In sector

photography, however, layers of time and movement appear on film as adjacent

dots that touch one another yet do not overlap. The image folds into several

visual angles, and the results can be seen in shots like Nine Cars to the East,Ten to the West,A Glass on the Move and a Die, and The Movement of Dande-lions, each from the year 1999 (figures 3, 4, and 5, respectively).


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As I see these photographs they are not statements but more like questionsor invitations to new ways of seeing and representing movement. If Heikkils

pictures are close to our normal way of seeing, Anttonens works problematize

it. They reveal what happens when one perceives movement in a different way.In so doing, Anttonens photographs also reveal how used we are to some ways

of representation, be they inborn or culturally developed or both.17 They showhow only a somewhat atypical approach to movement can profoundly affect theexperience of the world. As a result, Anttonens pictures can contribute to the

general discussion of how to refer to movement and how to perceive it.

Anttonens photographs do not seem to take a stand on what kind of envi-

ronment is valuable or desirable. They do not deal with physical environmental

traces and possibilities of movement as indicators of a worldview. Rather, they

seem to suggest that to approach almost any movement in any environment in a

personal, individual way is interesting; it is easy to admit that Anttonens own

pictures are fascinating even if their subjects are quite ordinary things. This,

perhaps, indicates supporting individuality more generally as well, and in this

regard Anttonens worldview is ultimately not so far away from Heikkils. The

work of bothlike that of many other artists as wellcan be seen as com-

ments against unifying and standardizing thinking.

Anttonens works quite literally make us see things we have never seen be-

fore. This also means, of course, that those vistas could not be reached in any

other way, and this is enough to make them important participants in the dis-

course on aesthetics of movement. Because of their individual nature they

really make us consider the point of view used and the possible kinetic and

other aspects of movement depicted by Anttonen. Again, we could refer to

Ronald Hepburne and connect Anttonens work to the long tradition of certain

aesthetic values, especially to individuality. This could open up the value of

this particular approach to movement to those who have not realized it before.

And again: this sort of thrill over individuality can be useful in environmental

administration and engineering, too, if it is presented well enough for discus-

sion. Of course, it is a different matter altogether whether, in the final analysis,

individuality should be taken as an ideal anywhere outside the realm of art.

In his article Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories about Nature18

continuing the discussion of cognitive and non-cognitive approaches to envi-

ronmental aestheticsThomas Heyd emphasizes that aesthetic appreciation of

nature calls for many points of view, thus criticizing Allen Carlsons somewhat

one-sided science-oriented approach. One of his arguments is that scientific

knowledge may be neutral, or even harmful, to our aesthetic appreciation of

17

Anttonen himself deals with this question in his Licentiates thesisAjan kosketus [The touchof time] (University of Art and Design Helsinki 1999) through Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco and

Nelson Goodman.18Thomas Heyd, Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories about Nature,British Journal

of Aesthetics, vol. 41, no. 2, April 2001.


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nature, because it directs our attention to the theoretical level and the generalcase, diverting us from the personal level and the particular case that we actu-ally need to engage.

19 Heyd is not saying that scientific knowledge should notbe used at all in the environmental discourse but he reminds us that it is notenough or the only alternative, especially if we talk about aesthetics.

This notion is relevant in the case of Heikkils and Anttonens photographs

as well. I said earlier that their power lies in their ability to make aesthetic val-

ues concrete and emotionally touching. Now, one can add that they bring up the

personal experience and the particular case that the scientific, statistical, politi-

cal, economic and many other contexts often omit. In addition to that they in-

troduce new ways of seeing ones surroundings and movement and surely con-

tribute to many other issues I cannot even think of herean in-depth analysis

including well justified generalizations would be much longer than this brief

presentation. I any case, as scientific approaches typically deal with their sub-

ject matter from one particular point of view at a time, artistic approaches do

the same. They are not more or less truthlike or generally better than any other

approach, and quite in the same way as there must be many scientific view-

points to anything we want to understand deeply, there must be many artistic

approaches to movement if we want to get a good idea of its aesthetics through

art. The good news is that there is no lack of such approaches.

As said before, the somewhat less good news is that there is no guarantee

that artistic or other aesthetic approaches will be taken into account in policy

planning and administration. In order not to be nave one has to remember all

the time that although aesthetic issues are important and even unavoidable for

human culture, they are not the only important things. What makes the situation

very complex, however, is that it is not even simple to say when aesthetic con-

siderations are actually taken into account and when ignored. We are back to

the general question of how to identify an aesthetics of movement. For exam-

ple, it may seem that highways are built for completely other than aesthetic

reasons but when considered more carefully also these other reasonssafety,

effectiveness, etc.probably have their aesthetic aspects. But when are those

aesthetic aspects valuable, desirable, good? There is no other way to find out

than to go on with the discussion, and I believe that one of the best ways to do

this is in close co-operation with art.

19

Ibid., p. 126.


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Fig. 1 Photograph be the Tapio Heikkil

Fig. 2 Photograph be the Tapio Heikkil


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Fig. 3.Nine Cars to the East, Ten to the West. Photograph by the Petri Anttonen

Fig. 4.A Glass on the Move and a Die. Fig. 5. The Movement of Dandelions.Photograph by the Petri Anttonen Photograph by the Petri Anttonen


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Documents

Aesthetics and Homo Mobilis