The "Global Art Project" in Empirical Aesthetics

Popov Evgeniy Aleksandrovich ORCID: 0000-0003-3324-8101 Doctor of Philosophy Professor of the Department of Sociology and Conflictology of Altai State University; Professor of the Department of History and Philosophy of the Barnaul Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia 66 Dimitrova str., office 513A, Barnaul, 656049, Russia popov.eug@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Zabneva El'vira Ivanovna Doctor of Philosophy Rector; State educational institution of additional professional education 'Institute of Education Development of Kuzbass'. 650070, Russia, Kemerovo region, Kemerovo, Zauzelkova str., 3 zabnevailvira@mail.ru

Introduction. Empirical aesthetics is an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, the object of research of which is the aesthetic experience of a person or community in an empirical, i.e. objectified way. Unlike classical (or philosophical) aesthetics, which aims to identify aesthetic experience as a result of perception and understanding of art in the appropriate categories of beautiful/ugly, funny/sad, sublime/base and others, empirical aesthetics focuses on, for example, how art grasps the surrounding reality and unfolds it in behavior, eventfulness, specific actions of the subjects. Perhaps the philosophers are right that "aesthetic experience is something that aims at itself" ^{[1, p. 294]}. Representatives of empirical aesthetics would most likely assert "the presence of aesthetic experience as a sign of awareness of the art world and reaction to it" ^{[2, p. 101]}. The main perspective of empirical aesthetics is an applied study of the states/phenomena/processes linking man and the world of art together, i.e. "their joint existence", in the words of S. Irwin ^{[3, p. 34]}. At the same time, despite the comparative "youth" of empirical aesthetics, which arose by the end of the nineteenth century in the mainstream of psychophysiology (G.T. Fechner) and chose idealistic attitudes close to the well-known Schelling approach as the main initial methodological platform, it already "tested" the positivist perspective at the beginning of the next century and subsequently almost always followed it. Meanwhile, it should be emphasized that a certain vacuum that arose in the study of art and aesthetic experience, which empirical aesthetics aspired to fill, was formed for several reasons. We will point out two main ones: first, during the transition period, K. A serious theoretical and methodological problem emerged in the relationship between the philosophy of art and aesthetics – the main difficulty concerned the definition of the boundaries of art and non-art; at the same time, philosophers defended classical patterns of artistry and shared the key thesis of Hippolytus Teng about the universal accessibility of art to people and societies, and aesthetics within the analytical direction allowed the possibility of deviation from classical ideas about art, considering non-art as a kind of incentive to obtain "a different aesthetic experience necessary for experiencing being" ^[4]. In this peculiar gap, empirical aesthetics offered its compromise option: not to look for the boundaries of art and non-art, but to demonstrate how reality is grasped in art/art and, thus, in the language of phenomenology, it will be possible to "bring art closer to transcending the world of things" ^{[5, p. 99]}, which will translate the dispute about non-art is classified as optional, i.e. optional. Secondly, at the beginning of the twentieth century, sociologists became more active in the study of art (for example, the "proletarian" sociology of art became its offshoot ^{[6; 7; etc.]}), and the possibilities of an empirical approach to the study of art first attracted "philosophical" aestheticians, and then empiricist aestheticians. Thus, in an article dedicated to B. Croce, one of the co-authors of this material shows how attractive the idea of building a social theory of art turned out to be for aesthetics in general ^[8]. However, theorizing deepened complex contradictions in the views of art from the side of aesthetics, philosophy and sociology of art; empirical aesthetics in such a situation aimed to "compensate for the eternal discussions about art, as a rule, not going beyond theoretical searches and attracting everyone – from art historians to politicians, by the targeted nature of research based primarily on an empirical perspective" ^{[9, p. 82]}. Of course, it was not necessary to count on the fact that it was empirical aesthetics that was supposed to take a kind of leadership in the study of art, especially since within the framework of philosophical aesthetics there were three main directions that were in serious competition with other branches of knowledge – "analytical": M. Beardsley, M. Weitz; "receptive": G. Gadamer, K.S. Lewis, L. Tyson; "phenomenological": M. Heidegger, E. Levinas and others. By the way, competition has arisen to a greater extent between empirical aesthetics and the sociology of art, but this curious issue deserves to be explored in another article – an article by one of the co-authors of this work entitled "Sociology of Art vs Empirical Aesthetics: Competition and Consensus" was sent to one of the journals. As for the history of the emergence and development of empirical aesthetics, this problem is also not addressed in this work. We will turn to the modern experience of conceptualization and some practices of empirical aesthetics (in particular, the practice of building a so-called "global art project", in fact, continuing I. Teng's thesis on the universality of art).

What is the scientific problem? It can be expressed as follows: the search for reasonable limits of the "accessibility" of art for understanding and rethinking man and society can be exhausted due to the fact that people switched at the beginning of the 21st century to issues of political, social and economic importance more significant for everyone and for everyone in the context of international tension and conflict ^{[10; 11]}. In addition, scientific fields still face a difficult task in choosing an adequate research strategy aimed at understanding the role of art in human social and individual life; probably, in such a situation, a background is needed that would open up new interdisciplinary opportunities in the reception of art and, thus, define it not only as a form of "public consciousness", but also the potential impact on the subject. In fact, it is necessary to "bring" art out of elitism, seclusion and bring it closer to the recipient and at the same time create additional opportunities for empirical and theoretical research. So far, there is no approach in science that would reveal the possibilities of art to form a new view of reality; according to Marsha Eaton, art often appears as a collection of objects "in-itself-and-for-itself", without revealing its outstanding capabilities specifically for humans ^{[12, p. 272]}. Judgments often arise that, as a form of public consciousness in the usual interpretation of social knowledge, art "is completely perceived as something unattainable, not fully understood, kept under the protection of thick walls of museums, galleries, storages and antique shops" ^{[13, p. 199]}. In other words, as Yoel Regev and Alek Petuk believe, "the essence of art is the unfolding of necessity without necessity, which nevertheless immediately turns into a given of the undefined, the whole essence of which is to present us with something elusive and keep it precisely in elusion" ^{[14, p. 197]}. Empirical aesthetics can also keep him from "slipping away". She is just trying to offer her own version of the deployment of art to a person and, importantly, to a researcher. The analysis of the heuristic possibilities of such a project becomes the purpose of this article. In the first part, we will demonstrate some theoretical provisions of empirical aesthetics in terms of the reception of "art for man and society", and in the second section we will turn to some specific research practices and, in particular, the so-called "global art project", which was born in the mainstream of aesthetics as a kind of response to the concepts and concepts of elitism of art, his inaccessibility and even "lack of intelligence", as A. Morato and E. Acuna put it ^{[15, p. 213]}. Probably, this last remark arose at the peak of the position of P. Bourdieu, who believed the opposite: "Intellectual centrism is never as noticeable as in the field of art" ^[16].

The theoretical background of empirical aesthetics. The research goal of empirical aesthetics seems to be quite complicated – first of all, it is necessary to build your own approach to the reception of art (the difficulty is to get out of the zone of powerful influence of the philosophy of art and philosophical aesthetics), on the other hand, it is necessary to maintain interest in art without replacing it with various quasi–manifestations and ersatz forms, which is widespread everywhere due to the emergence and active development of visual forms, digitalization, etc. This perspective also implies reliance on existing studies of art, but at the same time a departure from certain stereotypes that do not give a complete picture of the value-semantic certainty of art. Meanwhile, it is precisely this certainty that sets the tone in grasping reality through art. Perhaps the motto of empirical aesthetics should be grasping reality. Many forms, as is known, have the potential to grasp reality, as for empirical aesthetics, it, according to E. Kvemin, "should express its project (our italics – E.P., E.Z.), perhaps global, in order to show exactly how the whole world is refracted in art, not individual strokes colors, images of faces, people, cities, etc., and the world in its integrity, systemic and meaningful integrity" ^{[17, p. 171]}. Let us emphasize that the concept of a project will become largely decisive for empirical aesthetics – it will create its own "global art project", involving the convergence of all – individuals, societies, reality, politics, economics with what? – with art. It can be said that before, researchers were focused on such a rapprochement, but their interest nevertheless extended not to art and its existence, but to the preferences obtained from such interaction for politicians, economies, and societies.

The theoretical discourse of empirical aesthetics, due to its applied orientation, still does not contain any noticeable deviations from the available developments of aestheticians, art historians and other specialists, however, the aspect of projectivity/projectivity occupies a special place in it. In fact, empiricist aestheticians are persistently moving towards the idea of presenting art and everything related to it primarily at the level of reception of subjects (recipients), through a kind of conditional project that would not have rigid structures of form and content, but also not vague, as is often the case with modern art installations, performances, happenings, etc. However, there is a certain difficulty in this, which representatives of empirical aesthetics are ready to admit, but they are still in no hurry to offer their own perspective. According to D. Parker, "the attitude towards the form and content of art undoubtedly changes depending on the epoch and the mindset of those who undertake to analyze such a delicate phenomenon, but do the form and its contents change nevertheless? Empirical aesthetics does not answer this question for an understandable reason" ^{[18, p. 99]}. Obviously, Parker was referring here to the traditional position of the philosophy of art, which is difficult and, apparently, impossible to overcome, so the empiricist aestheticians in this matter proposed to "formalize" the relationship of form and content, "packing" them into some abstract and meaningless formulas. For example, D. Augustine and J. Wagemens proposed the following approach: "If the form and content are combined, then UAx is stated, where U is the dissected form, And A is the dissected content, while x is the division operator; if the form and content themselves are dissected, then UAx turns into X ua operator itself becomes sufficient" ^{[19, p. 457]}. There is some logic in this, and for the purposes of empirical aestheticians, the proposed formula may well work, but what does it have to do with art and whether it has to do with it at all is an equally important question that should be addressed to the authors of this calculation. By the way, for empirical aesthetics, fascination with such formulas and calculations is quite common; articles by representatives of this field of knowledge are full of such calculations, partly pursuing science, and on the other hand, without losing hope of creating a "project" that would be objectified numerically. Fortunately, art is such that it is not completely clothed in formulas, but at the same time, if you strive to create a conditional "project" that captures reality and transmits figurative series (or symbolic patterns) to generations, then this goal itself looks generally worthy and even noble. But it should be borne in mind that when dealing with art, and not with some abstract ersatz forms, often just unrelated to art, and offering a seemingly rather rigid research structure based on logic and the laws of mathematics, we can easily make sure that they are not viable. Perhaps an indicative point is the fact that attempts to objectify and formalize the "art process" have not yet led to an appropriate innovative line of research. Often, empirical aestheticians themselves tend to criticize their own findings and judgments. From this point of view, the collection "American Philosophy of Art: the main concepts of the second half of the twentieth century – anti-essentialism, perceptualism, institutionalism" is of interest ^[20]. Although it is related to the philosophy of art, the subtitle "institutionalism" also defines the place of empirical aesthetics, which tends to analyze "the universality of art in grasping the surrounding reality and deploying it in patterns and images" ^{[10, p. 78]}. The collection presents a number of works in which critical pathos, in particular, is directed at methods applicable to the study of art; the reproach of empirical aesthetics lies in the fact that it is "slow in mastering methods more significant for the reception of art, such as collaboration, experience, thought tuning, event synthesis and others" ^{[20, p. 188]}. A curious remark, to which representatives of empirical aesthetics generally listened and made some adjustments to their plan of methods and research programs. This means, for example, the "global art project" proposed by them ^{[17, p. 171]}.

Let's return to the issue of projectness, discussed in the framework of the discussion of empirical aestheticians, which unfolded under the auspices of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA) ^[21]. The members of the association presented their thoughts on this matter, combining them with one main idea – "modern experience in empirical research of art and works of art should be expanded to a global project (global art project), which allows us to set the boundaries of grasping reality (grasping the surrounding reality) and in new ways to unlock the outstanding potential of art for the consolidation of societies and individuals" ^{[3, p. 41]}. Perhaps for the first time, empiricist aestheticians declared the consolidating function of art, in fact, crossing out any theories of elitization that are actively applied to art. In part, these theories hindered the path of sociologists in the study of art ^[22], but they caused no less difficulties for philosophers, "fascinated in turn by the fact that art for a long time or even for all time was hidden under the cover of museums, in collections and collections, closing the way to many and many to it" ^{[23, p. 70]}. It seems to be quite possible to agree with this, but nevertheless, the main perspective of empirical aesthetics, as already noted, was aimed at creating a "global art project", for which not only the appropriate theoretical background was lacking, but also a different approach in methodological reflection was needed. Among other such accents of aesthetics, empiricists have proposed a method of event analysis, which, of course, is not new in social research, but regarding the study of art has not yet been fully tested. Nevertheless, it was the event analysis that was proposed as the basis for revealing the content of the "global art project" within the framework of empirical aesthetics ^{[24, p. 710]}. Event analysis in the research practices of empirical aesthetics. Since the "global art project" proposed by empirical aesthetics is based on the principle of understanding art as an event, event analysis was the most appropriate method of appropriate constructions. In fact, three main theses were proposed, which were to find expression in this global project: (1) art "as an eventfulness includes the world, society, the subject, as well as relevant structures responsive to aesthetic experience; these should be called value attitudes" ^{[24, p. 712]}; (2) It is not the subject that turns out to be at the center of art, "but an event that allows us to grasp the surrounding reality and deploy it as a kind of system of symbolic patterns – the clarity and meaningfulness of such for subjects should be achieved by a conditional art project (our italics – E.P., E.Z.)" ^{[25, p. 210]}; (3) global the project implies the universal openness of art to all, however, "aesthetic experience is difficult to explain through any global projects or structures, therefore it is important to determine that it is a project, i.e. the creation of a certain model of how all interests, needs and opportunities for understanding art should be taken into account" ^{[25, p. 211]}. Thus, the following accents appeared in empirical aesthetics: aesthetic experience is a key component of the deployment of art; art is event–based at the level of grasping the surrounding reality. In the practices of event analysis used by empirical aestheticians, this research perspective remains preserved, and the results obtained generally indicate that art is "refracted" in grasping, unfolding eventfulness and symbolizing reality. Here are some results of such event studies.

The event analysis methodology was actively used, among other things, in the development of the World Values Survey and the cross-country comparisons of value transformations carried out within its framework [see: 26]. The main feature of this technique in the study of art is to show how much an event is connected with art, and does not replace it by itself due to, for example, colorfulness, heuristics, significance in a political or even economic sense. In one of the articles, which reveals some of the nuances of using event analysis in the study of art, the co-author of this material just draws attention to the need to "reduce" the distance between eventfulness ("an event from art") and what art is in a priori sense as a given or as a creative act, truly inherent human existence^[27]. In empirical aesthetics, the "global art project" is represented by a set of different research practices, but a special place in them is occupied by those based on intentional or event analysis. From the point of view of researchers, "such an angle opens up opportunities for changing attitudes towards art as something exclusively closed, revealing its macro- and microcosm; but art is the same event as others that matter to each person and to humanity as a whole, which means that we must, measuring the event, to see in it the unfolding of human individual and collective existence" ^{[28, p. 701]}.In addition, according to Marsha Eaton, "aesthetic experience is directed towards the intrinsic features of objects or events" ^{[12, p. 278]}. In comprehending objects and events, the recipient must either maintain a distance from them, i.e. be unbiased, or, on the contrary, get as close as necessary to defend his interests. In short, it is necessary to correlate "contact with art" with our inner world and even more with the eventfulness surrounding us in everyday life.

Representatives of empirical aesthetics try to "optimize" the ratio of aesthetic experience, art and the value world personified by it. Thus, Monroe Beardsley in the article "Aesthetic point of view" emphasizes the need to take it into account in all cases of human contact with art, while "to accept an aesthetic point of view in relation to X means to be interested in any aesthetic value that X may possess" ^{[29, p. 160]}. "Possession of value", aesthetic experience, symbolization of reality, etc. – all these are components of the analysis undertaken by aesthetic empiricists. Using event analysis, their attention is focused on an event related to art, just as, in the words of George Dickey, art itself reflects its "social property of art" in eventfulness ^{[30, p. 245]}. Meanwhile, it is also important for Dickie that "a work of art in a descriptive sense is 1) an artifact, 2) to which some society or social group (sub group of a society) has been awarded the status of candidate for appreciation (has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation)" (italics of the author of the quote. – E.P.) ^{[30, p. 246]}. Event analysis allows us to evaluate eventfulness as a series in which "the artifact, the recipient and the actions emanating from it aimed at comprehending the world" ^{[15, p. 89]} have closed.

The following research practices undertaken by empirical aestheticians can serve as examples of this state of affairs. Thus, P. Silvia and co-authors, using the Bootstrap research graphic analyzer together with the event analysis methodology to assess aesthetic responsiveness to the most valuable events in the art world, surveyed respondents (N = 1071) from 10 European countries at the end of 2022-2023 and noticed that (1) the place where they converge is important to the study participants with art (galleries, exhibitions, museums), the entourage of such contact is also important (museum night, timed to a solemn date, etc.); (2) the time for visiting exhibitions and museums has been significantly reduced at the level of 2.7 points on the scale of "proportionality of time costs" for contact with works of art; (3) respondents, before contacting works of art, increasingly (1.86 points) get acquainted with materials on the ideology of the exhibition or containing information about the history of the exhibits on display, etc. It was concluded, in particular, that "aesthetic responsiveness" highly depends on the eventfulness associated with the deployment of art ^[31]. In another example, the authors of the study turned to the assessment of interrelated events, "the interruption of which significantly reduced the level of perception of works of art" ^{[25, p. 211]}. The researchers turned to experts in the field of art (restorers, gallery owners, antiquarians, iconographers, etc.) (N=230; 9 countries, including the USA, Canada, Australia) with questions about how certain events or conditions that were not originally related to art could later affect aesthetic assessments and/or the perception of subjects, and have been identified by them as relevant to the art world. It turned out that in most cases, experts state that the politicization of events unrelated to art turned out to be a full-fledged event series that had an impact on correcting attitudes towards art. This applied not only to specialized exhibitions aimed at political/ideological motives, but also to any others if they were held in locations or at times when political events turned out to be tense in specific countries or continents and in this case contributed to the formation of a "subtext" in the perception of works. Thus, the event analysis shows the importance of event assessments for the perception of art. At the same time, he gives an idea that the "global art project", which avoids politicization of events related to the world of art, is still not so unambiguously able to oppose anything to this, although empiricist aestheticians in some cases are very successfully able to "switch" attention from this side of the existence of art to another, related with aesthetic experience and symbolization of reality.

Conclusion. Empirical aesthetics, a field of knowledge formed at the level of interdisciplinary interaction, considers the creation of a so-called "global art project" as one of its goals at the level of theoretical positions and modern research practices. He should demonstrate several developments championed by empiricist aestheticians. Perhaps the main one is the possibility of objectification of aesthetic experience, but this task was initially with the emergence of empirical aesthetics. What makes it a "global project" is the need to bring people and art closer together, to move away from the existing social interpretation of art as a form of "public consciousness", to actualize the deployment of reality in art that is close to every person and society. From this point of view, art "falls" into the monitoring zone of the World Values Survey and is considered as a "global project" mainly to change attitudes towards the elitism of art, to reconsider its role in shaping both the aesthetic and social experience of subjects. In this article, we have attempted to assess the theoretical and applied potential of empirical aesthetics to create a relative "global art project" that supports the need to include art in a system of values that ensure, among other things, spiritual security and consolidation of cultural bearers. However, it is this aspect that undoubtedly needs further reflection.