Theatricality and Everyday Aesthetics

Abstract

Assuming the importance that everyday aesthetics concedes to action-directed experiences, the author of Theatricality and Everyday Aesthetics holds that a central aspect of the experience of the everyday comes out from the anti-theatrical performance of ordinary activities. Antitheatricality obtains when an agent is engaged in an activity losing the sense of being observed. Absorbed in the activity, she does not focus her attention on the object or in herself but on the activity itself. Absorption needs not be restricted to solitary or domestic activities but can be found in collective private and public activities. Examples from modern painting and contemporary photography are used to explain the phenomenon since art provides us with images that we would otherwise lack.