Really Boring Art

There is little question as to whether there is good boring art, though its existence raises a number of questions for both the philosophy of art and the philosophy of emotions. How can boredom ever be a desideratum of art? How can our standing commitments concerning the nature of aesthetic experien...

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Main Authors: Andreas Elpidorou, John Gibson
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Michigan Publishing 2022-12-01
Series:Ergo, An Open Access Journal of Philosophy
Online Access:https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/article/id/2231/
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author Andreas Elpidorou
John Gibson
author_facet Andreas Elpidorou
John Gibson
author_sort Andreas Elpidorou
collection DOAJ
description There is little question as to whether there is good boring art, though its existence raises a number of questions for both the philosophy of art and the philosophy of emotions. How can boredom ever be a desideratum of art? How can our standing commitments concerning the nature of aesthetic experience and artistic value accommodate the existence of boring art? How can being bored constitute an appropriate mode of engagement with a work of art as a work of art? More broadly, how can there be works of art whose very success requires the experience of boredom? Our goal in this paper is threefold. After offering a brief survey of kinds of boring art, we: i) derive a set of questions that we argue constitutes the philosophical problem of boring art; ii) elaborate an empirically informed theory of boredom that furnishes the philosophical problem with a deeper sense of the affect at the heart of the phenomenon; and iii) conclude by offering and defending a solution to the problem that explains why and how artworks might wish to make the experience of boredom key to their aesthetic and artistic success.
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spelling doaj-art-d24b5e24b6564c5a8ea10431d4bef9502025-08-20T02:13:24ZengMichigan PublishingErgo, An Open Access Journal of Philosophy2330-40142022-12-018010.3998/ergo.2231Really Boring ArtAndreas Elpidorou0John Gibson1N/AUniversity of LouisvilleThere is little question as to whether there is good boring art, though its existence raises a number of questions for both the philosophy of art and the philosophy of emotions. How can boredom ever be a desideratum of art? How can our standing commitments concerning the nature of aesthetic experience and artistic value accommodate the existence of boring art? How can being bored constitute an appropriate mode of engagement with a work of art as a work of art? More broadly, how can there be works of art whose very success requires the experience of boredom? Our goal in this paper is threefold. After offering a brief survey of kinds of boring art, we: i) derive a set of questions that we argue constitutes the philosophical problem of boring art; ii) elaborate an empirically informed theory of boredom that furnishes the philosophical problem with a deeper sense of the affect at the heart of the phenomenon; and iii) conclude by offering and defending a solution to the problem that explains why and how artworks might wish to make the experience of boredom key to their aesthetic and artistic success.https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/article/id/2231/
spellingShingle Andreas Elpidorou
John Gibson
Really Boring Art
Ergo, An Open Access Journal of Philosophy
title Really Boring Art
title_full Really Boring Art
title_fullStr Really Boring Art
title_full_unstemmed Really Boring Art
title_short Really Boring Art
title_sort really boring art
url https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/article/id/2231/
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