Aesthetic Justice. Design for a blind-spot culture

Buwert, Peter

Abstract

This paper presents a conception of aesthetic justice which builds on
thoughts of Theodor Adorno and Wolfgang Welsch and attempts to reconcile design’s relationships with both aesthetics and ethics. Where legal justice operates on a principle of homogenising equality, aesthetic justice recognises the full heterogeneity of experience and as such cannot tolerate the injustice of treating things which are not alike as if they were. Building on this theoretical conception a project of design for a blind-spot culture is outlined. Design, rather than contributing to societal anaestheticisation of the ethical can instead utilise its aesthetic influence to shine light on dark places, nurturing an atmosphere of sensitivity to differences, exclusions, oppressions and intolerances. Design’s potential to act, and fail to act, in such ways is discussed through examples of aesthetic artefacts relating to the 2016 British EU referendum, U.S. presidential election, and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Citation

Buwert, P. (2017). Aesthetic Justice. Design for a blind-spot culture. Design Journal, 20(sup1), S38-S48. https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2017.1353017

• Journal Article Type: Conference Paper
• Conference Name: Design for Next. 12th Eurpoean Academy of Design Conference
• Start Date: Apr 12, 2017
• End Date: Apr 14, 2017
• Acceptance Date: Mar 1, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Sep 6, 2017
• Publication Date: Sep 6, 2017
• Deposit Date: Apr 21, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 7, 2019
• Journal: Design Journal
• Print ISSN: 1460-6925
• Electronic ISSN: 1756-3062
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 20
• Issue: sup1
• Pages: S38-S48
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2017.1353017
• Keywords: Tolerance, Sensitivity, Ethics, Black Lives Matter, Anaesthesia
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/831539
• Additional Information: Volume 20, 2017 - Issue sup1: Design for Next: Proceedings of the 12th European Academy of Design Conference, Sapienza University of Rome, 12-14 April 2017