Lara Bortolusci Leporati

2023–present
PhD Student at Federal University of Juiz de For with a period in cotutelle at the Max-Weber-Kolleg (IGS - Resonant Self-World Relations in Ancient and Modern Socio-Religious Practices)

2021–2023
Master of Social Sciences / Federal University of Juiz de Fora

Beyond singularity back to artistic experiences: recovering a concept of authenticity 

How could artistic experiences provide a reconstruction path to a normative critical concept of authenticity, considering its cooptation in promoting individualistic narratives of self-fulfillment in late modernity? What in the artistic experience relationships could offer a critical concept of authenticity less centered in the “authentic” as a true mode of being? This project returns to critical and pragmatic theory approaches, such as resonance theory and pragmatic aesthetics, to understand why artworks and artists' relations serve as models that inspire an idea of authenticity, and how this can provide an overview less centered on individualistic perspectives of self-fulfillment and a true self. Our argument follows a critical pragmatic path in which authenticity, as a normative concept embedded in artistic experiences of producing and receiving, provides a relational process in which discovery and creation lead to an embedded formative relation in which a “singularity” emerges, immersed in the relational context of artistic practical experimentation. Reclaiming the potential of this normative concept to address a better understanding of the alienation critique, we could contribute to embedding it within a shared normative horizon, seeking a critical perspective on the reification of this concept into the discourses over the “authentic mode of being”, which emerges as a strong ethical value in late modernity.