Dove e quando

Talk by Claudia Cano (EHESS)

ABSTRACT

Interest, understood as an occurrent affective mental state, lies at the core of both learning and aesthetic experiences. The question, then, is how this understanding of interest can inform the design of “interesting objects.” While acknowledging the subject-dependent nature of what counts as interesting, there nonetheless remains room for deliberately crafting artifacts meant to elicit experiences of interest, in particular through “knowledge design” (Schnapp 2014). I begin by presenting interest as an epistemic emotion and offering a characterization of what it means for an object to “be interesting.” Building on this framework, I argue that in pedagogical and cultural contexts, interesting objects can function as levers for fostering both learning and aesthetic engagement. Interest operates not only as a powerful intrinsic motivator but also as a reliable predictor of knowledge acquisition, while simultaneously grounding aesthetic experiences. Drawing on case studies from museums and exhibitions, I examine specific display strategies and suggest directions for designing interesting experiences in the field of knowledge design.