Abel Franco - 'Touching Spaces with Our Body (and Life): How We Evaluate Architecture Aesthetically'

Season 9 continues with a presentation from our 2022 annual conference, Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Spatiality. This episode features a presentation from Abel Franco Abstract:

We both perceive and evaluate aesthetically spaces with our body, in particular by (experiencing ourselves) occupying and moving in them. Unlike simply being in a space, the experience of occupying is the experience of actively filling the space with our bodily presence and mobility. Where exactly we place our body in a space, how we place it (posture, orientation), and with which motion (activity) alters our perception of that space and our aesthetic evaluation. And vice versa: our unique perception of a space also affects how we feel our body. Saying that a space is oppressive or expansive, or warm or cold, or cozy or desolate, seems to express this. Perceiving a space shows strong similarities with the experience of touch: we touch a space with our body and our body is touched by that space. This is quite different from saying that the haptic features of our physical environment (natural or built) are relevant in our perception of spaces (J. Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, 1996). All sensible features can be said to be, not just add-ons, but integral part of that perception (cf., e.g., G. Böhme., Atmospheric Architectures: The Aesthetics of Felt Spaces, 2017): the light and colors (vision), the temperature and the textures of materials (touch), the sounds that are altered by, and fill, that space (hearing), the smells that also fill it (smell/taste). Our aesthetic evaluations of spaces not only take this—i.e. our perception of a space--into account but bring into them (a) the uniquely personal meaning we perceive in the sensible features (coziness, warmth, expansiveness) and (b) the evaluation of two types of possibilities we see in the space: (b.1) possibilities to do what is significant for us and, among these, (b.2) possibilities that can be qualitatively enhanced (i.e. in their felt quality) by that space (“it feels better to read in the balcony”). We, thus, evaluate spaces aesthetically, not only by touching them with our body—or being touched by them--but also projecting on them (touching them with?) our ideal of life. Our ideal of life explains our perception of significance and meaningfulness in the (embodied) activities and ways of filling the space (occupying). Reading by the fire while it rains and reading under the sun in the park are experiences of reading altered in different ways by the very experience of occupying that particular space, in a particular way, and at this moment of our life. Our (changing) ideal of life makes our aesthetic choices deeply personal and dependent on the very present moment of our life. And, thus, an aesthetically preferable space reveals itself as the appropriate fit of activity, moment-in-our-life and (perceived) space. It is a space where, not only our body but our life fits well--or fits better.

Biography:

Abel B. Franco holds a M.A. in History (1998) from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY); a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Salamanca (1999) and a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science (2006) from the University of Pittsburgh (EE.UU). He has taught in different CUNY campuses, at the University of Pittsburgh and, since 2006, at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) where he is currently a Professor in the Philosophy Department. He has written, given talks and published, mainly on the History of Natural Philosophy (especially Middle Ages and 17th century), on the History of Philosophy (especially the 17th century and, in particular, Descartes), on the History and Philosophy of Mind (especially emotions), and on Aesthetics (especially the relation between emotions and art, in the Baroque and in contemporary debates on philosophy of architecture and philosophy of fiction). His most recent articles are “Our Everyday Aesthetic Evaluations of Architecture” (_British Journal of Aesthetics_, 2019) and "The Aesthetic Value of Film" (_Journal of Aesthetic Education_, forthcoming).

Further Information: This recording is taken from our Annual UK Conference 2022: Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Sociality (Exeter, UK / Hybrid) with the University of Exeter. Sponsored by the Wellcome Centre, Egenis, and the Shame and Medicine project. For the conference our speakers either presented in person at Exeter or remotely to people online and in-room, and the podcast episodes are recorded from the live broadcast feeds. The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, events, and podcast. About our events: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/events/ About the BSP: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/about/