Aesthetics for Birds

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art for Everyone

October 24, 2016
by Aesthetics for Birds
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3d Animation for Adults: “Borrowed Time”

The emergence of new art forms and media is often, if not always, met with some resistance. Animation has always had a back seat, but now graphic novels have gained some cachet, and experimental animation has raised the status of what used to be stuff for kids. 3D animation of the style we see from Pixar and Dreamworks has been relegated to the same just-for-kids and not-for-serious-people category, but it too is trying to break out of that mold. (Remember the first 5 minutes of Up?) Watch the newly released short “Borrowed Time” from a couple of Pixar animators (Lou Hamou-Lhadj and Andrew Coats) to see for yourself. Have some tissues on hand. https://vimeo.com/187257744 Borrowed Time via vimeo Other good pieces pushing these boundaries? Or is 3D animation just too wrapped up with kids to be rescued? Or does the whole issue rest on the mistaken assumption that things for kids can’t be … Continue reading

October 27, 2013
by Aesthetics for Birds
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The Aesthetic Appreciation of Natural Disasters

What follows is a guest post by Helen de Cruz. Helen is a British Academy postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford, affiliated to the Faculty of Philosophy and Somerville College. She has authored numerous journal articles on a variety of issues within philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of religion, naturalistic approaches to epistemology, and the integration thereof. Her personal webpage can be found here. Hayao Miyazaki’s animation movie Ponyo features a tsunami. The tsunami is shown in its full threatening and destructive power, yet is rendered with a great aesthetic sensibility. On several occasions, Miyazaki expressed his aesthetic delight in natural disasters, and defended it as follows: