The Aesthetic Turn in Everyday Life in Korea

Kwang Myung Kim

Department of Philosophy, Soongsil University, Seoul, South Korea.

DOI: 10.4236/ojpp.2013.33054                

Abstract

We are living in the transitional age from the rational, analytical, and scientific to the cultural, sensitive, and aesthetic. The aesthetics of everyday life lies at the center of this age. There is no boundary between art and life in contemporary art. Almost all the contents and objects of everyday life became a work of art in the condition of searching for the aesthetic. Since aesthetic theory was shifted from the artist-centered or a work of art-centered to the audience, spectator or beholder-centered, art and everyday life were more closely related to each other. So aesthetic attention or attitude is not specific to art, but pervasive broadly in everyday life. We can embrace the aesthetic concerns in everything we make and use every day. In the long tradition of Korean art, it can be seen that aesthetic consciousness is steeped in day-to-day life as well as the arts. I want to consider the problems of everydayness, Korean aesthetic consciousness in daily life, and contemplation in the aesthetic consciousness. Korean art was characterized by its “lack of refinement” and “nonchalance”. The characteristics of Korean art as the qualities of “technique without technique”, “Planning without plan”, “asymmetrical symmetry” have dominated the everyday consciousness of Korean people as well as Korean art. The extension of aesthetic emotion through experimentation shows us the change of aesthetic consciousness as a new possibility of interpretation. We stand in an urgent situation of the need for a new theory of art. It will be related to the future of aesthetics. For this reason, I think we have to consider the meaning of the aesthetic turn in everyday life.

Keywords

Aesthetics of Everyday Life; Everydayness; Aesthetic Turn; Korean Aesthetic Consciousness; Aesthetic Contemplation

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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