'Place in garden, lawn, to beautify landscape.' When Don Featherstone's plastic pink flamingos were first advertised in the 1957 Sears catalogue, these were the instructions. The flamingos are placed on the cover of this book for another reason: to start us asking questions. That's where philosophy always begins. Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art is written to introduce students to a broad array of questions that have occupied philosophers since antiquity, and which continue to bother us today-questions like: - Is there something special about something's being art? Can a mass-produced plastic bird have that special something? - If someone likes plastic pink flamingos, does that mean they have bad taste? Is bad taste a bad thing? - Do Featherstone's pink flamingos mean anything? If so, does that depend on what Featherstone meant in designing them? Each chapter opens using a real world example - such as Marcel Duchamp's signed urinal, The Exorcist, and the ugliest animal in the world - to introduce and illustrate the issues under discussion. These case studies serve as touchstones throughout the chapter, keeping the concepts grounded and relatable. With its trademark conversational style, clear explanations, and wealth of supporting features, Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art is the ideal introduction to the major problems, issues, and debates in the field. Now expanded and revised for its second edition, Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art is designed to give readers the background and the tools necessary to begin asking and answering the most intriguing questions about art and beauty, even when those questions are about pink plastic flamingos.

Since 1993, Smith/Stewart have produced collaborative works that involve their bodies in a series of sensorially heightened communicative actions. In works such as Dead Red and Breathing Space, the artists' own bodies have become material for artistic practice and are subjected to a whole array of experiments that mine the experience of communication. This book documents the work and includes two original essays analysing their achievements.

The development of technology and online learning has transformed not only the way information is transmitted but also the way learning and teaching are approached. As a socio-cultural construction, arts and creativity reflect the societal context. Accordingly, nowadays, educating the arts and creative potential is necessarily affected by technology. Sustaining Creativity and the Arts in the Digital Age discusses from a global perspective how the relationship between the arts, creativity, and education is evolving and developing in the digital age and considers the multiple dimensions of creativity. Covering key topics such as robots, dreaming, art education, innovation, and digital technologies, this reference work is ideal for artists, industry professionals, researchers, academicians, practitioners, scholars, educators, and students.