Welcome
The Scottish Aesthetics Forum (SAF) aims to support and promote study and research in aesthetics across Scotland. We invite speakers to deliver a lecture open to the public at a Scottish university on an aesthetics-related topic of their choice.
We choose to address a wide array of interests in the field of aesthetics, including analytic and continental philosophical approaches, as well as interdisciplinary approaches spanning across the arts, humanities and sciences.
Our events are free and open to all.
The SAF is generously funded by the British Society of Aesthetics and the Scots Philosophical Association.
We are currently hosted by the University of St Andrews, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Glasgow.
The SAF is also affiliated with the London Aesthetics Forum and the Welsh Aesthetics Forum.
Our Next Events
Tuesday 10 November, 16.00-18.00
Diarmuid Costello (Warwick) at Edinburgh and online
Wrongful, Degrading, or merely Indecent? Exploitation in three works by Santiago Sierra
Abstract:
I will present some work in progress from a book project taking works of contemporary art as spurs to philosophical reflection. I call the proposed methodology ‘philosophical criticism:’ after explaining how I understand this, I focus on several works by the controversial Spanish artist Santiago Sierra:
160cm line tattooed on four people (Salamanca, 2000)
133 People Paid to have their hair dyed blond (Venice, 2001)
Workers who cannot be paid remunerated to remain inside cardboard boxes (Berlin, 2002)
These ‘remunerated actions’ involve paying minimal wages to people to do things about which we may feel considerable moral disquiet: paying heroin addicted prostitutes the price of their next shot to have their backs permanently tattooed; paying Chechen asylum seekers who could not be paid under German law to sit hidden under cardboard boxes for the duration of an exhibition; paying migrant street vendors selling fake merchandise on the streets of Venice to have their hair dyed peroxide blond so that they suddenly start “popping out” all over the city.
If paying freely consenting participants subsistence wages to do such things is indeed wrong, why is that? One oft-heard charge is that such practices are exploitative, understood in a morally thick sense: that is, wrongly exploitative. But if they are, what makes them wrong? I consider three possibilities here: that they take unfair advantage of a vulnerability in circumstances in which one should rescind from doing so (Bob Goodin); that they extract excessive benefits from those whose desperation prevents them refusing an indecent proposal (Mikhail Valdman); that their failure to respect the dignity of those exploited is degrading (Ruth Sample). Do any of these views capture what is going on here? One difficulty for applying such approaches to Sierra’s practice is their tendency to present exploitation as a two term relation, when artworks involving such activities seem to implicate (at least) a three way relation: between the parties to the transaction itself and those for whose edification that transaction is apparently staged. I close by considering what, if any, difference this should make to whether we take the practices in question to be wrong and—if we do so take them—what implications, if any, this has for their value as art.
The talk will be at 40 George Square, Lower Ground Room 11 (LG.11), 4-6pm.
To be followed by:
Friday 11 December, 12:30-14:30 (earlier time):
Chiara Ambrosio (UCL) at Glasgow and online
In 2027:
Thursday 11 February, 16:00-18:00:
Adrian Currie (Exeter) at Glasgow
Thursday 4 March, 16:00-18:00
Paloma Atencia Linares (UNED) (tbc) at Edinburgh
Thursday 15 April, 16:00-17:30
TBC at St Andrews
This talk is in-person but also hybrid. Link to follow!
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The Organisers
Stacie Friend
Stacie is a Reader in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. She is a former President of the British Society of Aesthetics and previously helped to organise the London Aesthetics Forum. Her research focuses on issues at the intersection of aesthetics, language and mind, especially in relation to our engagement with fictional narratives. In studying this engagement, she has collaborated with researchers in other disciplines, most recently as Director of the project ‘Art Opening Minds: Imagination and Perspective in Film’, funded by the Templeton Religion Trust.
Edinburgh Team
Christopher Earley
Chris is is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on the epistemology of art, why artists love to break rules, and the ways aesthetic artefacts help us to figure out our place in history.
Glasgow Team
Jodi Miller
Jodi is currently completing her PhD at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests include the work of Susanne K. Langer, particularly her theory of expression and re-examining it in a contemporary art context, the philosophy of music, and expression within artistic practice and in experimental and improvisational works of art.
St Andrews Team
Lisa Jones
Lisa is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. Her research interests include the philosophy of literature, and of fiction, particularly with respect to their cognitive and moral value. She has also worked on appropriation and copying within art, and – more recently – on the aesthetic aspects of pro-wrestling.
Nicholas Wiltsher
Nick is Lecturer in Philosophy at St Andrews. He works on various topics in aesthetics, including social identity, expression theory, fiction, and music.
Mariona E. Miyata-Sturm
Mariona is a Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on issues at the intersection of aesthetics, philosophy of science, and epistemology, in particular the role of aesthetics in scientific research, how aesthetic and epistemic values blur together in explanatory and other epistemic contexts, and the interplay between affect and cognition in theoretical and practical knowledge.
Contact us
We would love to hear from you! If you are interested in giving a talk at SAF, know someone who would, or would like to collaborate on a project, let us know.
We adopt the BPA/SWIP Good Practice Scheme.