This years ‘shadow
conference’ of the International Association of Aesthetics, Revisions of Modern Aesthetics, took
place in Belgrade (Serbia). There were a lot of participants especially from
Europe and Asia. The conference was very well organized. The hyper active ‘paparazzi’
(can’t wait to see the pics), fancy coffee breaks (straws in the cups!), the
fun restaurants we visited, without forgetting the good (but heavy) food...
everything worked out well.
In a fashion
typical for the IAA the conference atmosphere was relaxed. Many great papers
were delivered. My own favorites were the animal-related talks by Katya Mandoki
and Krystyna Wilkoszewska (in this session I thought for the first time that
something is really starting to happen in this topic), Tyrus Miller’s
surprising keynote on Paul Scheerbart’s architectural utopia and Zoltan
Somhegyi’s talk on architectural decay (Learning from Detroit). But I must have
missed dozens of papers – like all of us.
I represented the
Finnish Society in the two meetings of the executive committee of the IAA. The
biggest issue for the Finnish Society was that we were asked if we’d have
interest to organize an IAA event. Finland has never organized a minor one
(Lahti hosted a major conference in 1995), but sadly at least the next one should
be organized 2018, and that’s the year when we are hosting the conference of
the Nordic Society of Aesthetics. It would be too much work to organize two
conferences during one summer. But who knows if 2021 would be possible?
Next year’s main conference
in Seoul is entitled Aesthetics of Mass Culture.
I am personally very happy about this, as my work has mainly focused on this
topic.
Max Ryynänen,
Chair of the Finnish Society for Aesthetics
