Visualising an Aesthetics of Process

This book addresses aesthetics from a process philosophy perspective to highlight how even the perception of fixed objects, such as painting and drawing, depends on the intertwining and layering of a range of processes.

Drawing on philosophers within the process tradition, the book argues that the visual arts and aesthetics need to directly address speed differentials in vision and the material medium.  In doing so, it rephrases questions in aesthetics – which often involve perduring objects, substances or even eternal ideas – in terms of durational differences.  From this perspective, aesthesis constitutes the confluence between visual finitude and the broader movements of material becoming.

Visualising an Aesthetics of Process is essential reading for all scholars, researchers and advanced students of aesthetics and metaphysics.

Dr Paul Atkinson teaches in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University, Australia. He is the author of Henri Bergson and Visual Culture: A Philosophy for a New Aesthetic (2021), and has published widely on a range of media, from cinema and dance to painting and music, in addition to his work on philosophy and aesthetics. Most of his research investigates how processual times underpin differences between mediums and inform creative practice and technology use.