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Gerhard Hofbauer
Global Warming / Individual Freezing?

With the song "Nur Noch Kurz Die Welt Retten"[1], Tim Bendzko has delivered a slogan that can be interpreted in many ways. He himself promises after having saved the world he would return to his love-mate again. However, if mankind is an integral part of the world, it might be lucky to be saved by this hero. Otherwise?

„Performing in the arts how nature affects “, the current topic of Polyaesthetic Bildung International is leading the relationship of the individual to all that concerns nature to a crucial point, to a pivot: A revitalised awareness of everything that concerns nature in the broadest sense is intended to help people reposition themselves in their world.

There is no doubt about the urgency of averting global overheating, however and wherever opportunities arise. - But isn't individual coldness spreading wherever we look? Has not physical distancing already demonstrably led to a trend towards 'social distancing'?

No doubt, everything that distances the hostile virus has primary rank, so that "I can't breathe" does not become a heinous reality.

Let us leave the horror vision and its metaphors, but without running away from it all. For complementary counter-programmes are an imperative of the hour. Making the human psyche visible, audible, tangible in its psychophysical correspondence, simply put, its manifold system of reference to all nature on and around us, is the essence of our approach.  To demonstrate and communicate through creative, artistic expression how - in what way and in what respect - nature touches us is the program[2].

From the sensual experience of how the world affects us, clear-headedness[3] can emerge. Focusing on how to be affected and reflecting on its aesthetical effects without predetermined purpose and utility[4], ‘eo ipso’ may create space, let us breathe more freely, may enable us better awareness and deeper feeling of the self[5].

Especially in urban areas, experience of nature has been noticeably tipped out of the overall experience of the world, but also beyond that, in all settings where other priorities take over the educational canon. We urge aesthetic educational processes back into context and hope you will stand with us.

The-> IGPE PUBLIC FORUM at htpps://paeb.org is open for your comments and contributions.

 

[1] See the Youtube-Video Tim Bendzko - Nur Noch Kurz Die Welt Retten (Offizielles Video) - YouTube (1.5.2021).

[2] Wolfgang Seierl, composer, painter and musician from Vienna, member of IGPE, made a 1 metre long string into a comprehensive artistic impulse on the issue of 'closeness and distance'. His works were presented at the Symposium 2020. For more details see the report of the symposium at https://paeb.org.

[3] Johann Gottfried Herder has described this aesthetic process in detail: Herder, Johann Gottfried von; Heintel, Erich (Hg.): Sprachphilosophische Schriften. 2. Aufl. Hamburg: Meiner, 1975 (Philosophische Bibliothek 248)

[4] Without going into detail, that kind of request can be found in Friedrich Schiller's Letters on Aesthetic Education: Schiller, Friedrich; Berghahn, Klaus L.: Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000 (Universal-Bibliothek 18062)

[5] As incomparable as the time of origin of both sources of reference may be with the present pandemic situation, both approaches signify concrete aesthetical counter-programmes to the perceived psychic suffering of their time. While Herder criticises the human distance of rationalism, Schiller expresses his harsh disappointment about the French Revolution being able to lead to a 'better man' and trusts on the aesthetic education of the individuum. - Different signs of those times with similar effects as in the present?