When I learned about the word “sublime” for the first time, its definition was vague for me: it is an adjective and verb that can be used as a noun; It describes a mode of admiration but not necessarily in a pleasant way. The effects and experience it creates vary with different individuals and time… I was not able to understand such an abstract word.

When Neri&Hu Design and Research Office came to GSAAP to give a lecture, Rossana Hu mentioned the term ‘sublime’ and translated it to Chinese as ‘境界’ (JingJie). This translation was really inspiring. In Chinese, JingJie means not only the current environment and situation, but also the level of morality, aesthetics and values associated with them. It is about the world we are in and how we see it. Her translation and the readings we went through this semester made me realize that the notion of sublime reflects the way people see and think through the lenses of natural instincts, social values and aesthetics, personal experience and so on.

Kwakiutl, the north American peoples who traditionally lived in what is now British Columbia, Canada, show their understanding of the sublime through their totemic works. Due to their tough living environment and limited range of activities, Kwakiutl were curious about and revered the unknown world. They imagined themselves as related with animals with whom they share a relationship of commonality, for example, of origin, kinship, or even just inherence. Kwakiutl people wanted to create a spiritual connection with sacred animals to acquire their power and vision. In one of their two-layered totemic masks, the human figure was wrapped within a raven figure, representing Kwakiutl’s wish of being protected by the sacred animal from things that surpassed their understandings, and the wish to share the raven’s power of flying to explore the world from a broader new point of view. Kwakiutl’s way of seeing is pure and simple. Their sense of the sublime comes from the awe in regards to nature and the instinct of exploring a broader world.

In the 18th and 19th Century, a lens of “civilization” was added to human vision. The development of society diminished people’s respect for nature and generated a polarized viewpoint. For the progressive thinkers, the sublime came from the point of view of anthropocentrism, and nature existed to serve humanity. They admired space as a “sharp contrast between the built environment of the old world and the unbuilt, or ‘natural’ environment of the new world.” Meanwhile, the primitivists re-valued the sense of awe towards nature, by accepting the filter of monarchical, aristocratic and ecclesiastical oppression. These ‘dark filters’ enabled them to see the hard-obtained possibilities of freedom, spontaneity and authenticity. This admiration for ancient dreams led to the development of pastoral ideology to achieve harmony between mankind and nature. Although these points of view are distinct, they shared one thing in common which is a human- centered worldview. The governing rationale for this kind of psychology was to promote technological and economic development. For example, when building a railroad to the West, the government would describe it as a means of carrying America closer to the heart of unspoiled nature. Although this was illogical, it satisfied people’s desire for the sublime, understood as relation between man and nature through the process of human domination.

The 20th Century was the era in which the Technological Sublime replaced a Natural Sublime. Lenses of politics, nationalism, religion and gender were re-defined. Nye’s text American Technological Sublime argues that the notion of sublime is not only based on a universal capacity for a certain kind of emotion, but also came from people’s emotions shaped by their own situation and needs. It illustrates that people no longer achieved a sublime feeling through native simplicity. For example, Niagara Falls would not be defined just as a natural wonder. Visitors would consider the facilities as part of the scenery and spontaneously connect the scenery with their religious background and national pride. As mentioned in the Nye’s text, John Quincy Adams described his feeling to Niagara falls as follows: “This roar of Niagara is but a song of praise to the Almighty God. ” In other words, at the site, he looked through a religious filter, and made the analogy between the fall and his religion for their similar level of impact on him. A man-made sublime thus automatically substitutes the natural sublime. When people see the aquarium, the parks and the discovery center by the fall, they see it through the lens of national pride, as a demonstration of American engineering skills, affecting ownership of this natural wonder together with a built-up of awe for national greatness. The spectacular view created by technology was demonstration of human power and intelligence. It was definitely worth to generate pride in. However, when it came to the ‘Electrical Sublime,’ it seems that the lenses adopted by people were too thick to let them see the real world. In Nye’s chapter on “The Electric Cityscape: The Unintended Sublime”, he talks about the development of lights and its contribution to advertising. Diverse and colorful lights strongly attract people’s attention and promote innovation through different forms of advertisement. Fascinating billboards, vivid lights at the storefront and amusement park, LED lights that traced the skyline of the city… all these lights fused together would form a new type of sublime. This was crowd-pleasing and became an aspect of American life. Behind this showmanship there were the logics of politics and economy. When people saw the Electrical Sublime, what they really saw was economic prosperity and a powerful image of America. In his article, Nye states that: “The resulting landscape can quite literally be called the landscape of corporate America. It embodied the dominant values of individualism, competition, advertising, and commodification, and at the same time it transformed these values into a disembodied spectacle with an alluring promise of personal transformation.”

Nevertheless, the transformation did not happen right away. What came first, affecting individuals, was a controlled view of the world causing an emptiness inside. Government used lights to let people see the best side of the country, leaving poverty and chaos in the dark: the lights did not lit up the problems that would require help. Notwithstanding such a great prosperity, people realized how small they were, and found it hard to define themselves. This feeling was similar to when one walks through the most lighted and crowded neighborhood which turned into a dark alley; At that moment one would feel a little anxiety and not be sure where to go. The Electrical Sublime, or Consumers’ Sublime, was operating at a macro scale, putting personal experience on the sidelines.

In comparison with the logics of economy, art offers a much more inspiring lens. The Art of Assemblage, for example, challenged people’s former expectations and attitudes towards an art piece with a new style of juxtaposition. Artists left out coherent transitions in-between parts and provided possibilities to arrange seemingly unrelated elements in unexpected ways. This type of art was painful to see at first because it gave people a hard time in making connections among different sections and understanding them. However, this “offensive” mode of expression enabled people to go back to a point of view enabling to recognize the world. In The Art of Assemblage: A Symposium, Dr. William Chapin Seitz explained: “In the best of modern works, however, we suddenly discover that we have been snatched away to a new position inside the most primitive, or the most sophisticated, processes of seeing and thinking and remembering. The mode of juxtaposition can offer us new resources for simply paying attention.” Juxtaposition challenged the lenses that people were wearing at the time by breaking the rules of seeing. The sublime that this provided was generative. Moreover, it inspired people to see things with a four-dimensional lens. For example, in Juan Gris’ work: ​Breakfast​ (1914), the artist observed objects from different angles at different times. The image he gave us was no longer limited by the parameters of a two-dimensional canvas. It represented an attitude of observing comprehensively and critically. Through art, people can perceive sublime qualities based on their instinctive sense of aesthetics and personal experience.

Now, what if the Hudson River were to be conceived as a metropolitan spectacle, and Manhattan a natural phenomenon? I think this situation has already become the case as the Technological Sublime has replaced Natural Sublime. With the development of human society, natural wonders could be appreciated more than ever. It is hard to find a clue about where people’s feeling for the sublime comes from, when facing the Hudson River, since we are in the most diverse city in the world and everyone has different cultural backgrounds and personal experience. However, I hope, if the Hudson River were to become a new type of spectacle, maybe people will be able to once again look at it with the lens of ‘an awe for the nature’, just like the first time one sees a railroad reaching out into the landscape. Or, more radically, with a sensibility similar to that of the Kwakiutl people.

1. Leo Marx, “The American Ideology of Space,” in: Denatured Visions, NY: The Museum of Modern Art, 62-78.
2. Nye, David. American Technological Sublime. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1994. 173-198
3. ​Nye, David. American Technological Sublime. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1994. 173-198
4. William C. Seitz,​ The Art of Assemblage​, New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1961. 124-40