Christoph F. E. Holzhey

Tension In/Between Aesthetics, Politics, and Physics

The article sketches a critical paradigm for interdisciplinary work that is centred on tension as a highly ambiguous and ultimately deeply paradoxical notion. It highlights that a unifying account of what tension is or a systematic classification of its diverse meanings would risk resolving tensions between different approaches and privileging a particular mode of doing so. Successively focussing on aesthetic, socio-political, and physical tensions, the essay articulates tension rather as a broad umbrella term that is stretched by multi-perspectival articulations, unified through its intensive surface tension, and at the same time full of transformative and generative potentials. In particular, it proposes that tensions between different cultural or disciplinary fields can be made productive by inducing tensions within each field so that different fields can be related to each other on the basis of tension rather than some substantial commonality.
Keywords: tension; aesthetics; politics; physics; field theory; intensity
Title
Tension In/Between Aesthetics, Politics, and Physics
Author(s)
Christoph F. E. Holzhey
Identifier
Description
The article sketches a critical paradigm for interdisciplinary work that is centred on tension as a highly ambiguous and ultimately deeply paradoxical notion. It highlights that a unifying account of what tension is or a systematic classification of its diverse meanings would risk resolving tensions between different approaches and privileging a particular mode of doing so. Successively focussing on aesthetic, socio-political, and physical tensions, the essay articulates tension rather as a broad umbrella term that is stretched by multi-perspectival articulations, unified through its intensive surface tension, and at the same time full of transformative and generative potentials. In particular, it proposes that tensions between different cultural or disciplinary fields can be made productive by inducing tensions within each field so that different fields can be related to each other on the basis of tension rather than some substantial commonality.
Is Part Of
Place
Vienna
Publisher
Turia + Kant
Date
2010
Subject
tension
aesthetics
politics
physics
field theory
intensity
Rights
© by the author(s)
This version is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Bibliographic Citation
Christoph F. E. Holzhey, ‘Tension In/Between Aesthetics, Politics, and Physics’, in Tension/​Spannung, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 1 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2010), pp. 13–45 <https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-01_02>
Language
en-GB
page start
13
page end
45
Source
Tension/​Spannung, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 1 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2010), pp. 13–45
Format
application/pdf

References

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Cite as: Christoph F. E. Holzhey, ‘Tension In/Between Aesthetics, Politics, and Physics’, in Tension/​Spannung, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 1 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2010), pp. 13–45 <https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-01_02>