Instability and aesthesia: art, semiotics and science edging catastrophe [theory]

The extension of catastrophe theory to aesthetics, fostered by the writings of the mathematician René Thom on the matter, will lay the groundwork for examining how a morphodynamic conception can underpin a semiotic comprehension of art. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s differential philosophy, the need emerges to move from the search for an underlying topological structure, conceived as a nuclear discursive logic, to a more explicitly sensitive appreciation of the perceptual instabilities that play a role in aesthesia.