Ornamented Worlds and Textures of Feeling: The Power of Abundance

Abstract

Human development takes place in an ornamented –redundantly patterned and highly repetitive – world.The emergence of knowledge takes the form of episodicunpredictable synthetic events at the intersectionof the fields of internal and external cultural meaningsystems – through the mutually linked processes ofconstructive internalization and externalization. Patterns ofdecorations – ornaments – are relevant as redundant “inputs”into the internalization/externalization processes.Ornaments can be viewed not merely as "aestheticaccessories" to human activity contexts but as holisticdevices of cultural guidance of human conduct thatacts through the subjectivity of personal feelings. Thisguidance is peripheral in its nature – surrounding theordinary life activities with affectively oriented texturesof cultural meanings.