The purpose of the thesis is to investigate and draw attention to current discussions around the use of artificial intelligence to produce images, as well as to examine different ways to perceive the relationship between artificial intelligence and creativity. The thesis’ theoretical framework consists of an account on the historical understanding of the concepts regarding creativity and art, as well as the theories that have dominated the Western world in terms of understanding the internal processes of creativity and art. Six articles published by various newspapers regarding AI-generative art have been examined by use of a modified Toulmin method. The result shows that the authors behind the articles regard AI-generative art to be considered as art and the process to be creative. Their view seems to indicate that the relationship between creativity and artificial intelligence may have several societal and ethical implications that need to be addressed in the future.

Föreliggande uppsats är en religionsestetisk studie med fokus på den estetiska dimensionen inom shinto och dess historiska bakgrund. Studien söker en förklaring till nutidens estetiska shintodefinition genom att spåra den tillbaka till Motoori Norinagas (1730–1801) begrepp ”tingets patos” (mono no aware) och hans estetiska tolkning av det gudomliga. / The present essay is a religious aesthetic study focusing on the aesthetic dimension within Shinto and its historical background. The study seeks to find an explanation for the aesthetic Shinto definition of today by tracing it back to Motoori Norinaga's (1730–1801) concept “the pathos of the thing” (mono no aware) and his aesthetic interpretation of the divine.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate how the politicians in five local building committees view their ability to influence their cities’ aesthetics. A secondary purpose is to document the politicians’ thoughts during a building boom. This case study is based on surveys and phone-interviews with current committee members in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmo, Orebro and Vasteras. The results show that most of the politicians think they can affect their cities’ aesthetics and examples on when they have affected the aesthetic is provided, mainly when it comes to building colour schemes, examples are provided in the study.

Due to the geographical location, the amount of daylight in Sweden varies greatly during the year - the lack of light is part of our everyday life. Regardless of the season, the sun’s position gives a light that seems to fall from the side, it kind of drags itself in through the windows. As a result, it is easily influenced by the surroundings. All the edges, corners and profiles that stand in the way create an endless variety of shades. Given these conditions, it is a good reason to devote time to the detailing of all the parts of a window. In this master’s project, I am directing my gaze towards the window frame and more specifically towards the framework’s profiling. By observing the shape and the color language of different profiles, the perceived contrast between light and shades is noticed and interpreted into new. Based on the qualities of the Nordic light, this project hopes to clarify and show with concrete examples why decision-making around the window frame is crucial for how we perceive the incident light. Relatively small differences in profiling create a large effect in contrasts, I find, and consequently, a more complex window profile enhances the character of the window and the incident light. This project is about looking at something specific, to observe and to explain what already is there.

This master thesis delves into the design and aesthetics of a specific product in the marine industry, a stabiliser fin. The thesis is in collaboration with the company Humphree which develops and sells one of these fins. The Humphree all-speed fins are mounted on yachts to stabilise the vessel while cruising as well as at zero speed. The fins provide the user with stability and increase the comfort for the whole crew while optimising fuel efficiency. As this fin withstands huge loads and forces the fin should be trustworthy and express so as well. As of today, these criteria might not be fully fulfilled. This is part of the first aim of this thesis, “How can the design be updated to align with customer’s desires?”. Humphree focus is to stabilise marine vessels with their two main products, the stabiliser fins, and their Interceptors. As Humphree grows, the company should explore new markets within the marine area and create products with a common thread, which is a part of the second aim of this thesis “How can the product better showcase its capabilities?”. As the world faces environmental complications and risks, Humphree wants to do their part in the area. The marine market is already seen as a villain in this area, especially in the private sector. This is something that could, and should, be improved as a big part of the world’s population seeks more environmental products. This is investigated in the final aim, “How can the environmental impact of the product be reduced?”. Throughout the pilot study, the principles of Human-Centred design were applied to enhance the quality of the research and facilitate the identification of correlations between information instances. The primary objective was to conduct a pilot study to identify the future requirements for stabiliser fins. This involved primarily interviewing assemblers and people from Humphree, as well as benchmarking and lastly a design review was held to determine the necessary technical solutions. Secondly, a new concept of the fin should be made according to the findings from the pilot study. The thesis resulted in that the new concept should have a material change to aluminium instead of carbon fibre. The aluminium enhances the fin’s robustness and enables repairability, thus improving its environmental friendliness. Design adjustments to the exterior were made to align with Humphree’s product design, optimize mounting efficiency and enhance the fin´s robust appearance. However, the design changes were small as the pilot study confirmed the effectiveness of the current fin design. / Detta arbete fördjupar sig i design och estetik av en specifik produkt inom marinindustrin, en stabiliseringsfena. Arbetet sker i samarbete med företaget Humphree som utvecklar och säljer en av dessa fenor. Humphree’s allspeedfenor monteras på yachter för att stabilisera båten både under färd och stillastående. Fenorna ger användaren stabilitet och ökar komforten för hela besättningen samtidigt som de optimerar bränsleeffektiviteten. Eftersom denna fena utsätts för enorma belastningar och krafter bör fenan vara pålitlig samt förmedla en sådan känsla. Dessa kriterier uppfylls inte idag, och är därför en del av den första målsättningen för denna uppsats, “Hur kan designen uppdateras för att stämma överens med kundens förväntningar?”. Humphree’s fokus är att stabilisera marina fartyg med sina två huvudprodukter, stabiliseringsfenor och deras Interceptorer. Samtidigt som Humphree växer bör företaget utforska nya marknader inom den marina sektorn och skapa produkter med gemensamma designkaraktäristiska drag, vilket är en del av den andra målsättningen för denna uppsats, “Hur kan produkten bättre visa sina förmågor?”. Den marina marknaden ses redan som en bov till miljöpåverkan, särskilt inom den privata sektorn. Detta är något som skulle kunna, och bör, förbättras då en stor del av världens befolkning efterfrågar mer miljövänliga produkter. Detta undersöks i den sista målsättningen, “Hur kan den miljömässiga påverkan av produkten minskas?”. Under pilotstudien tillämpades principerna för användarcentrerad design för att förbättra forskningskvaliteten och underlätta identifieringen av samband mellan olika informationsinstanser. Huvudsyftet var att genomföra en pilotstudie för att identifiera framtida krav för stabiliseringsfenor. Detta innebar främst intervjuer med montörer och personer från Humphree, samt benchmarking och slutligen en designgranskning för att fastställa nödvändiga tekniska lösningar. För det andra skulle ett nytt koncept av fenan utformas enligt resultaten från pilotstudien. Arbetet resulterade i att det nya konceptet skulle ha ett materialbyte från kolfiber till aluminium. Aluminium förbättrar fenans robusthet och möjliggör reparation, vilket därmed förbättrar dess miljövänlighet. Designjusteringar av exteriören gjordes för att anpassa sig till Humphree’s produktdesign, optimera monteringsprocessen och förstärka fenans robusta utseende. Designändringarna var dock små eftersom pilotstudien bekräftade att den nuvarande fenans design var effektiv

This essay is an examination of the examples in Kant’s Critique of Judgement. The examples which I have focused on all converge in an idea of wildness. These examples of the beautiful are illuminated by a culture-historical perspective, where the literary and scientific travelogue genre is of great importance. Apart from being exegetic and culture historical, my method is also analytic. The general ambition is to answer the question; what is the parrot doing in the third Critique and what makes it a better example of a free beauty than a jackdaw? Taking as point of departure Jacques Derrida’s notion of parergonality, the example is primarily understood as formative for the thesis, not only as illustrative. By analysing Kant’s use of the wild, exotic and colourful objects as examples the essay intends to show how imagination and understanding operates in the beautiful. The parrot thus corresponds with the role of imagination in its relation to understanding in aesthetic judgement. The examples manifest the strength of the imagination and how it dominates understanding through its wildness. The aim is to present a way to approach the restful contemplation that Kant ascribes to the mind in the experience of the beautiful as bearer of a movement with considerable importance. Rodolphe Gasché’s emphasis on the wild examples as a precognitive minimum for understanding and Hannah Arendt’s view on imagination as an ability of intuition without the presence of the object, have also been essential for my argument.

This thesis investigates the aesthetic interpretation of learning processes in television produced and broadcast in Sweden between 1956 and 1969. The thesis explores how these programmes are linked to concepts of Bildung by their aesthetics, by which the intangible cultural heritage is entrusted in the form of oral and visual traditions, storytelling and games/play, where learning is the common denominator. The programmes are divided into three categories: aesthetics of attentiveness, aesthetics of tale/storytelling and aesthetics of play. The detailed, thick, descriptions of the programmes emanating from the close-readings shall be, together with the aesthetic categories that I have formulated and expressed in a model, regarded as the survey’s key findings. The starting point of the central theoretical model of the thesis is André Malraux’s idea of an imaginary museum of imagination in which photo reproductions can constitute a collective memory, and thus bepart of an intangible heritage. Based on this idea of ​​an imaginary museum, I have constructed a conceptual model called a medial museum, valid in its own time as well as for posterity. The theoretical models that the study gain support from are characterized by phenomenological and hermeneutical perspectives, as I refer to  a phenomenological-hermeneutical method when analysing the programmes, and at the same time underline the phenomenological-hermeneutically based aesthetics in the analysed programmes, where aesthetic interpretation of learning processes in terms of attentiveness, tale and play is of a phenomenological-hermeneutic character. For a broad perspective on learning processes, theoretical support is acquired both from the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer and his hermeneutic of traditions and from the French philosopher Jacques Rancière and his emancipatory ideas of pedagogy and aesthetics. Furthermore, the French philosopher Paul Ricœur and his thoughts on importance of storytelling for knowledge formation have had significant influence on the work. Regarding the concepts of play, I have made use of both Gadamer’s ideas of ​​art experience as play and of Donald W. Winnicott’s theories about play as transitional area. In the programmes’ aesthetics is found a depiction of a broadened interpretation of Bildung, where processes of learning comprise a direct sensual perceiving, attentiveness, storytelling/tale and play. Moreover, within the programmes’ managing of an intangible cultural heritage, I have found an expression of an interplay between modernity and tradition, with emphasis on the historical significance of the present, and rooting in the past of everyday life, where expectation on the future and the memory of the past can co-exist. To summarise, the study suggests the possibility to understand aesthetics as an epistemology using sensuous experience as basis for a conceptual knowledge about how to understand the world. Thereby, one can comprehend aesthetics as pedagogy per se.

<p>Anne Charlotte Leffler, Victoria Benedictsson and Frida Stéenhoff were all part of the Modern Breakthrough in Swedish literature. By utilizing Jürgen Habermas theoretical works on communicative action, and Nancy Fraser’s supplementary reading of his theory, this essay makes clear that the authors’ struggle for an understanding and a rethinking of social norms in their plays <em>Skådespelerskan </em>(1873), <em>Romeos Julia </em>(1888) and <em>Lejonets unge </em>(1896) can be read as a contribution to the public debate. Dialogue has a key function for female authors during the Modern Breakthrough. Women and mens’ possibilities to take part in conversation and argument as equals, requires the professional woman’s transgression and access to the privileges of both public (State) administration – “system”, and world of everyday life – “lifeworld”. As oppositional authors, Leffler, Benedictsson and Stéenhoff took advantage of the literary public domain, in this case the theatre. The theatre as public sphere had a more effective capacity to affect its audience than fiction. The plays were written and staged in a cultural period that, compared with the present one, in a greater sense influenced public opinion. The theatre was a powerful part of the public debate, and this debate involved parties from both on-stage and off-stage positions.</p><p>At the theatre Leffler, Benedictsson and Stéenhoff turned the private into politics. Their powerful contribution to the public debate were directed specifically towards the bourgeois audience. They carried on a controversy concerning the notion of the bourgeois family by showing scenarios that raised objection to its idealistic point of view. The bourgeois living room was exposed on stage. Conflicts related to the private sphere were brought up as a theme in a public sphere and by so means were incorporated into the public debate, which at that time was dominated by men. The plays mirrored the audience and the authors’ strategies were based upon the remodeling power inherent in conversation and argumentation. Thereby, the audience were confronted with an alternated reflection of themselves. This reflection should be read as a problematic representation of the writing of history. The alternate mirroring brought in itself forward an argument that emphasized why a new reflection was necessary.</p><p><em>Skådespelerskan</em>, <em>Romeos Julia </em>and <em>Lejonets unge</em> examine female artists in a bourgeois environment. Through the artist the structures that maintain bourgeois ideals are exposed and questioned, but first and foremost the artist show that communicative action between men and women was insufficient. The androcentric order did not acknowledge women and men as equals, in accordance with that, the possibility of conversation, in the sense of Habermas, came to nothing. Under such circumstances an understanding between men and women could not be reached. Love within the institution of marriage also suffered since it could not be founded in acknowledgement as long as the structure maintained. Saga and Adil, the main characters in <em>Lejonets unge</em>, personify, on the other hand, Stéenhoffs ideas of what is being needed to change the androcentric structure. They are citizens of the future.</p><p>My focus is on human action (in an Aristotelian sense) in the plays, the way characters stage themselves and bring the plot forward, shed light upon their possibilities and limitations in proportion to each other as men and women. My analysis thereby contrasts with the greater part of earlier research. I give prominence to the connection between psychological conflict and social position/role. In <em>Skådespelerskan</em>, <em>Romeos Julia</em> and <em>Lejonets unge</em> all of the characters’ psychological conflicts are based in gender issues, the consequences of being a man or woman in the 18th century, rather than explicit existential matters.</p>

Anne Charlotte Leffler, Victoria Benedictsson and Frida Stéenhoff were all part of the Modern Breakthrough in Swedish literature. By utilizing Jürgen Habermas theoretical works on communicative action, and Nancy Fraser’s supplementary reading of his theory, this essay makes clear that the authors’ struggle for an understanding and a rethinking of social norms in their plays Skådespelerskan (1873), Romeos Julia (1888) and Lejonets unge (1896) can be read as a contribution to the public debate. Dialogue has a key function for female authors during the Modern Breakthrough. Women and mens’ possibilities to take part in conversation and argument as equals, requires the professional woman’s transgression and access to the privileges of both public (State) administration – “system”, and world of everyday life – “lifeworld”. As oppositional authors, Leffler, Benedictsson and Stéenhoff took advantage of the literary public domain, in this case the theatre. The theatre as public sphere had a more effective capacity to affect its audience than fiction. The plays were written and staged in a cultural period that, compared with the present one, in a greater sense influenced public opinion. The theatre was a powerful part of the public debate, and this debate involved parties from both on-stage and off-stage positions. At the theatre Leffler, Benedictsson and Stéenhoff turned the private into politics. Their powerful contribution to the public debate were directed specifically towards the bourgeois audience. They carried on a controversy concerning the notion of the bourgeois family by showing scenarios that raised objection to its idealistic point of view. The bourgeois living room was exposed on stage. Conflicts related to the private sphere were brought up as a theme in a public sphere and by so means were incorporated into the public debate, which at that time was dominated by men. The plays mirrored the audience and the authors’ strategies were based upon the remodeling power inherent in conversation and argumentation. Thereby, the audience were confronted with an alternated reflection of themselves. This reflection should be read as a problematic representation of the writing of history. The alternate mirroring brought in itself forward an argument that emphasized why a new reflection was necessary. Skådespelerskan, Romeos Julia and Lejonets unge examine female artists in a bourgeois environment. Through the artist the structures that maintain bourgeois ideals are exposed and questioned, but first and foremost the artist show that communicative action between men and women was insufficient. The androcentric order did not acknowledge women and men as equals, in accordance with that, the possibility of conversation, in the sense of Habermas, came to nothing. Under such circumstances an understanding between men and women could not be reached. Love within the institution of marriage also suffered since it could not be founded in acknowledgement as long as the structure maintained. Saga and Adil, the main characters in Lejonets unge, personify, on the other hand, Stéenhoffs ideas of what is being needed to change the androcentric structure. They are citizens of the future. My focus is on human action (in an Aristotelian sense) in the plays, the way characters stage themselves and bring the plot forward, shed light upon their possibilities and limitations in proportion to each other as men and women. My analysis thereby contrasts with the greater part of earlier research. I give prominence to the connection between psychological conflict and social position/role. In Skådespelerskan, Romeos Julia and Lejonets unge all of the characters’ psychological conflicts are based in gender issues, the consequences of being a man or woman in the 18th century, rather than explicit existential matters.

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to explore how art was mediated and given meaning in the environment of an urban media culture in Stockholm during the second part of the 18th century. It comprises studies of how art was distributed on the market, how it was discussed in the press and how it was exhibited in public. It also includes an analytical orientation toward mixing of concepts and values, rather than purifying them into categories such as elite and popular. Art is approached as an open concept of investigation. The thesis presents three studies. The first discusses art as concepts and subject matter in papers, pamphlets and encyclopaedias, with a critical stand against the historiography emphasizing the establishment of the 'fine arts'.  The second situates art in two parallel practises of showing art in public, exhibitions arranged by the Academy of Arts and the Auction Chamber's public sales. The third deals with prints on the market, a medium equally recognized as one of the fine arts and as a visual mass medium. All studies also consider notions of interaction, public, and social class. Two overarching arguments are developed. The first concerns media cultural functions as mechanisms of cultural transgression. This argument points to the mixing of international and local, regarding both themes in the press and prints on the market. It also stresses the mixing of art, commerce, and entertainment, in the dual character of both the academy's exhibitions and the auction's sales. The second argument consists in pointing to alternative cuts, by which I suggest discursive relations between art, luxury, entertainment, and knowledge. These are areas that, since the 18th century, have often been kept apart, but were nonetheless deeply interwoven. One overarchig pattern studied throughout the thesis is the 18th-century linking of the fine arts as well as luxury, entertainment, and knowledge to a perceptually defined subject.