Course 1: Aesthetic, Anti-aesthetics, Anaesthetics: Art Through the Senses
Course by Esther Leslie
7 - 12 August, 2023

Course Level BA/MA
2.5 ECTS

Course Description
The course is organised around the traditional division of the senses into sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. It begins by examining the ways in which senses have been hierarchised and divided within the Western philosophical tradition, touching on Aristotle, Kant and others and set in relation to critical approaches.
All thinking will be related to art inputs. The objective is to understand the relationship between aesthetics, as a perceptual element, and aesthetics as a value-drenched field, and how these aspects shift historically and socially. It aims also to draw into the debate the question of an aesthetics, as a figure for alienation, and the anti-aesthetic as an immanent critique.

It will draw on capacities for art analysis, conceptualisation of art, visual and aural analysis.
Also through this reflection on Sixth sense, with explorations of Ectoplasm, spirit Photography, Ether, aesthetics, anti-aesthetics, with art inputs from Susan Hiller, Suzanne Treister, Jane and Louise Wilson.

Biography
Esther Leslie is Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck. Her interests lie in the poetics of science and the politics of technologies. Her current work focuses on turbid media and the aesthetics of turbulence. Recent work on the biopolitical economy of dairy (written in collaboration with Melanie Jackson) includes the publications Deeper in the Pyramid (2018/2023) and The Inextinguishable for the Limerick Biennial, 2020–21. Leslie’s book on the anti-fascist radio pioneer Ernst Schoen is forthcoming with Goldsmiths Press, as is a study of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and its impact in Teesside with Palgrave Pivot.

Participation
15 participants will be selected to participate in this course. Eligible participants must read the Terms, fill out the application form, upload the required documents and submit the application form. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

The conditions and registration fees
Enrollment fee 1 - 370 euros for self-paying students, with the offer of accommodation in student residences.
Enrollment fee 2 - 570 euros for institutionally sponsored students, with the offer of accommodation in student residences.

Special conditions apply for alumni of the Summer School as School.
Scholarships are available for students from Kosovo.
Payment must be made after successful application.

Late applications may be accepted until July 22, 2023.