Therapeutic Aesthetics

Maria Walsh's book marks a decisive step forward in the study of art as a means of addressing trauma. Through sustained analyses of moving image works, she advances a compelling understanding of their power to relieve psychological damage without airbrushing the social and economic forces underlying it. * Marcus Verhagen, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art, Sotheby's Institute of Art, UK * In a series of encounters between moving image practices and a diverse selection of ideas and theories this wide ranging book diagnoses and develops an original concept of pharmological aesthetics. Walsh is highly attuned to what is fast becoming one of the most urgent issues of today - how certain forms of psychic malaise are increasing as other new ones are emerging - and has identified within certain artistic strategies not so much a cure as a complex treatment for them. A very timely work for those interested in the intersections between therapeutics and contemporary art and indeed in contemporary practices of micro-resistance to our latest form of capitalism. * Simon O'Sullivan, Professor of Art Theory and Practice, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK * Applying a feminist politics and drawing on a series of metaphors from medical and therapeutic discourses, Walsh's inspired book Therapeutic Aesthetics shifts attention from traditional definitions of art as transcending the everyday to focus on art as embedded in our current regime of cognitive capitalism. * Amelia Jones, Robert A. Day Professor of Art and Design, University of Southern California, USA *