Black Aesthetics

Engineering Aesthetics and Ergo-Aesthetics:

Human factors researchers and practitioners have been focusing research attention on the easeof-use, productivity, safety, comfort, and effectiveness aspects of product and system design. This article argues that it is time that we add another important dimension to the fields of human factors research and practice—the aesthetic dimension. This article discusses the need for the establishment o...

Darwinian Aesthetics Informs Traditional Aesthetics

[ ] 1 Aesthetics

There is perhaps no more vexing, fraught, and neglected concept in the study of children's literature than aesthetics. No doubt the neglect of a serious, theoretical inquiry into the aesthetics of children's literature stems from our contemporary understandings of the discipline of children's literature itself. The study of children's literature has, historically, been the work of librarians an...

Beyond Black Boxes: Bringing Transparency and Aesthetics Back to Scientific Investigation

We present a set of case studies in which students create, customize, and personalize their own scientific instruments—and thus become engaged in scientific inquiry not only through observing and measuring but also through designing and building. Although computational technologies have, in general, contributed to making today’s scientific instruments more “opaque” (that is, less understandable...

Computing Aesthetics

Aesthetic judgment is one of the most valued human characteristics, being regarded as a remarkable display of intelligence. Popular knowledge tells us that it is purely cultural. In this paper, we present a brief theory according to which aesthetics depends on biological and cultural issues, namely on visual image processing. We present an implementation of this theory and the experimental resu...