Aesthetic Nutrition

Let’s try framing beautiful art and design as a biological resource— call it spiritual nourishment or aesthetic nutrition. What strategies can we borrow from the world of health, nutrition, supplementation, and fitness?

food pyramid

ingredients in a recipe

rules of thumb

fasts, diets, regular change

experimentation and tracking

universal principles of health

notation of problematic consumption habits (over-eating, under-eating, too fast, too much of a certain kind)

specialized consultation, measurement (qualitative or quantitative), tracking, and intentional strategies for improvement

What if there was 'personal aesthetic experience management' - in addition to dietitians and financial advisors, we had aesthetic dietitians and aesthetic advisors making recommendations oriented around identifying your preferences and needs in the context of your goals and aesthetic calorie demands and costs and portions, addressing your over or under-consumption of one aesthetic form or flavor, teaching how to cook for yourself (paint) vs going out to eat at museums, etc. etc.

This exists to some extent Stanford’s DYL course or in ‘life stylists’' etc, but imagine another level of rigor— i.e. you had a personal movie producer / storyboarded who went through your entire current life and brainstormed with a logistics person how to improve the sensory experience of life

Did you get in your 2 sunsets this week? That's a key target we are on.

Is your room clean and nicely appointed?

Are you getting enough victorian exposure? Did you spend too much time out in the mid-century modern on your way to work? Did you over-indulge on the contemporary in town this weekend?

Imagine a chart of all the spaces you pass through; an intake form that somehow charts your needs based on known universals as well as personal history and self-knowledge

Tailored aesthetic prescriptions — take a look at this portion of the exhibit at the museum down the street, consider this movie, this art store, these books, and these clothing brands.

Of course, this recommendation function is largely filled by friends (or algorithms) who know or share our tastes—how can one more intentionally build out that ecosystem capability in a community? Or how can one use algorithms across platforms, so that one is not being limited to a specific experiential vendor’s options, and so that one doesn’t lose the ability to search for and create experiences.

One can imagine, very literally, aesthetic or experiential recommendations as a component of medicine or psychotherapy and sports performance -- e.g. ‘take a vacation’ but with more thought and taste. Perhaps a physician would refer you to an aesthetics dietitian.

Questions

• consider modeling art / aesthetics as medicine or immunity / aesthetics as sickness and health or threats and opportunities / benefits and costs to health

• ‘resource management’ feels a bit top-down when applied to groups: what does this look like as a bottom-up or middle out function? (i.e. without any sortof ‘aesthetic resource management committee’ just a culture of people deeply invested in aesthetic quality, perhaps working in small coordinated groups)

  • i.e. if ~aesthetic nutrition developed alongside improving spiritual or psychological or medical or neuroscience tools / practices and individuals practiced it, how would it change the aggregate landscape?

  • what about institutions of 20 people — e.g. community groups or small town planning boards with highly developed aesthetic taste and rigor — how would that change a larger aesthetic landscape?

  • what if there were highly divergent practices, all rigorous and intentional, but immensely varied in taste, and alternately competing or developing new syntheses, etc.

  • what does a world with a more evolved version of all of the above look like? how might we get to that?

• What historical cases are relevant? How did Paris become Paris? What are the existing relevant institutional landscapes and prevailing modes of thought / philosophies / cultures / ideologies around aesthetics? What is the trajectory? How knowable are all of those? How could it be better? What augmentations? What new institutions? What strange and unexpected corners of the landscape might produce valuable knowledge?