매체 변화에 따른 미학적 경험과 감수성의 변화 고찰: 버크와 료타르의 ‘숭고’를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the principles and the historical arguments of the sublimity, an affection, which can be experienced through the works of arts and the cultural products in multimedia era. Lyotard argues that it is the time of postmodern, and the term presents the shifted meanings on aesthetical experience in terms of different principles of images and narratives from the traditional ones. And he also presents the sublimity as the dominant aesthetic affection after the avant-garde period, and traces the historical disputes and notions of the sublimity. I think, with Lyotard’s perspective on sublimity, Burke’s notion on the sublime is also very important in aesthetics history in the fact that he was the first theorist that examined the sublime and distinguished it from the beauty. His philosophical inquiry in the sublime suggests that the feeling is contradictory because it causes pleasure and pain, joy and anxiety, and exaltation and depression simultaneously, and I think, the feeling is the same affection that we can experience through the multimedia-based arts and cultural products. In addition to these benefits, Burke’s arguments are very useful to understand and reflect on the relationship between images and words or poetry and paintings, which is very crucial in multimedia era, because he suggests we can experience the sublime through the verbal representation or poetry while we can experience the beautiful through the paintings. He also proposes, I suppose, the sublimity isn't simply the cognitive perception but an affection that can cause the physiological changes of human bodies, and this notion is very helpful to grasp the origins and the principles of the sublimity and to understand the meaning of experiencing arts physically in this digital era. For these reasons, I conclude, to explore the sublimity is essential to interpret the works of arts and the cultural products not only in present time but also for the future.