Affective artifacts, aesthetics and care: a deepening view

Intervenante : Giulia Piredda (IUSS Pavia)

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In this talk I would like to integrate my proposal concerning affective artifacts (Piredda 2020), offering some considerations regarding the relation between affectivity, aesthetics, and care. Originally, affective artifacts have been defined as material or abstract objects (1) that alters the affective state of the agent who interacts with them; (2) whose loss would alter the affective state of the agent; (3) that sometimes are perceived as part of the extended self of the agent. I think that this view – and in general, the view of situated affectivity – could be enriched by the integration of the aesthetic and the caring dimension (Saito 2022). Many of the actions we perform every day, almost automatically, are affective and caring actions. They are also, in some ways, aesthetic actions, or the result of aesthetic choices (Lopes et al. 2022).

We do not give much weight to many of the actions we perform every day (e.g., taking care of ourselves and our loved ones—human and non-human, elderly, children, partners, pets), but—if we did—we would notice that the fields of affectivity, care, and aesthetics are much broader than we are normally willing to acknowledge. Following this line of thought, affectivity moves further and further away from the realm of the immediate and the unreflective to become the fruit of cultivation and constant commitment.

McIver Lopes D., Nanay B., Riggle N. (2022). Aesthetic life and why it matters, Oxford University Press.
Piredda G. (2020). What is an affective artifact? Further developments in situated affectivity, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 19, pp. 549–567, doi:10.1007/s11097-019-09628-3.
Saito Y. (2022). Aesthetics of care. Practice in everyday life, Bloomsbury Academics, London.