Beyond the bifurcation of nature: Rethinking aesthetics in contemporary knowledge practices

What if aesthetics were no longer bound to the arts, the beautiful, sublime or even to the realm of subjectivity? In this talk, we explore the possibilities of a novel paradigm in aesthetics, predicated on rejecting the modern compartmentalisation of aesthetics into a realm separate from science, technology, law, the economy and their attendant practices. On the one hand, science and technology studies (STS) have begun to consider the role of aesthetics in technoscience, for instance concerning the role of affect in biomedicine, laboratory practices, energy demand reduction, public engagement with science and technology as well as the public production of truth in legal and mediatised practices. On the other hand, within social and cultural research and philosophy a new paradigm in aesthetic thinking promises to re-invigorate how aesthetics is understood to operate as a principal aspect of existence. This talk develops a radically expanded understanding of aesthetics, fundamental to common and ordinary experience for both humans and non-humans, drawing Alfred North Whitehead’s rejection of the ‘bifurcation of nature’, sketiching out how such an expanded notion of aesthetics operates in contemporary knowledge practices.