Object and Soma: Remarks on Aesthetic Appreciation of Design

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the object of aesthetic appreciation in discourses on design. While this object is usually considered an external one, somaesthetics focuses on the body of the person doing the appreciating. Based on this duality, we propose a general account of appreciation of the design object through an evaluation of the subject’s soma. We provide reasons and examples to explain why our thesis on somatic encounters with embodied designs is, to a high degree, intuitively based on the relational nature of such objects. We conclude by showing how our findings can inform both design theory and practice and potential implications for the latter.