The session questions are intended to provide a loose framework for the discussion and to catalyze dialogue. Participants are welcome to respond to any of them in whatever way they see fit and to pose questions of their own as they arise.
(1) What is the current role of experience in the making and beholding of art? Has aesthetic experience been displaced by the current practices of interpretation, “decoding,” identifying references, etc?
(2) Is there a relationship between synaesthesia and the “immersive experiences” of today’s multi-media and interactive art? What might the rise of these immersive forms say about the role and status of the body in an emerging worldview?
(3) What role might there be for art criticism in providing new interpretive frameworks that include room for the recognition of the spiritual in art?
(4) Is it time to replace “the viewer” with a designation less mired in the Modernist ethos of objectivity, distance, “disinterestedness,” etc.? If so, what might some alternative terms be?
(5) How might a different understanding of the experiential or spiritual value of art pose a challenge to the current emphasis on monetary value endemic to our market-based system?