From Athletic Aesthetics to Flip Aesthetics

This course examines the transformation of artistic practice in digital culture from what Brad Troemel described as Athletic Aesthetics (2014) to what we will explore as Flip Aesthetics. While Troemel framed artists as competitors within an attention economy shaped by visibility, productivity, and platform performance, contemporary artistic practice increasingly unfolds within speculative and financialized environments.

Today, artists often operate not only as producers of cultural objects and performers on the timeline, but also as traders and narrative managers for patrons. Artistic value emerges through speculation, community participation, tokenization, and (market) performance across digital networks.

Through critical readings, case studies, and discussions, students will examine how speculation alters the relationship between art and value, and what it means to make art in an environment where artworks are continuously flipped.

Key questions include: How does speculation redefine the role of the artist? What forms of participation emerge in decentralized cultures? And how do artistic practices respond when cultural production becomes inseparable from market dynamics?

The course combines theoretical inquiry with contemporary artistic examples to provide students with conceptual tools for understanding art-making under conditions of platform capitalism and networked speculation.