Symbiotyczny splot, czyli lektura jako wyzwanie estetyczne
Complex Symbiosis or Reading as an Aesthetic Challenge

Summary/Abstract: The article offers an aesthetic analysis of the phenomenon of reading. It reviews a number of senses in which the concept of reading is used and attempts to point to their interpretations which go beyond dictionary definitions. The basic premise from which the argumentation starts suggests that the concept of reading has acquired a broad and diverse cultural meaning referring not only to the standard process of deciphering a written text. The article claims that the concept of reading is now applied to a variety of aesthetic and artistic phenomena. Especially interesting application of the concept of reading happens within the domain of visual arts which should naturally be associated with the concept of watching rather than reading. The article offers a number of suggestions why that may be. One of the reasons for the altered application of the concept of reading is a complex variety of features that reading as an activity possesses. On the one hand, reading can be seen as an intellectual or cognitive mechanism which helps explain meanings, on the other hand it is an activity shaped by psychosomatic, sensual, and circumstantial factors. This may be the reason why it seems to be smoothly incorporated into aesthetic environment whose defining feature is visuality.

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