Aestheticization of Everyday Life

The aestheticization of everyday life refers to the growing significance of aesthetic perception in processes of consumption and consuming. It points to the observations that increasingly more aspects of everyday activity are subject to the principles of aesthetics (the appreciation of beauty and art) and that even the most mundane forms of consumption can be expressive and playful. The emerging digital economies of the twenty-first century have exacerbated this shift, supporting Mike Featherstone's claim that the “aestheticisation of everyday life” has arrived (cited in Flew 2002). The resulting consumption is part of an emerging “experience economy” (Rifkin 2000) where entertainment, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and lifestyle products and services combine to shape our identities in ways not seen in the modernist era of cultural ...