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Katya Mandoki initiated the systematic study of everyday aesthetics (1994, 2006, 2007) focusing on sensibility at play in social interactions according to each institution’s implicit rules and their political effects through positive and negative aesthetic categories. From a semiotic and evolutionary perspective, she concentrates on subjectivity rather than so-called “aesthetic objects” (which is an oxymoron). She develops a semiotic model that analyses the concurrence of visual, auditory, somatic, and verbal aesthetic communication in everyday life. Among her contributions to the theory of culture is analyzing the predominant role of aesthetics in the construction of identities (distinct from individualities and roles) as forms of play and in the production and reproduction of social institutions. She published books on these subjects (in addition to various academic articles): The Indispensable Excess of the Aesthetic: Evolution of Sensibility in Nature (2015), (El indispensable exceso de la estética (2013) , Everyday Aesthetics; Prosaics, Social Identities and the Play of Culture (2007) , La construcción estética del Estado y de la identidad nacional (2007), Estética cotidiana y juegos de la cultura (2006), Prácticas estéticas e identidades sociales (2007) , Estética y comunicación (2006) and Prosaica; introducción a la estética de lo cotidiano (1994) .
Mandoki studied philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Visual Arts at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas San Carlos Academy, as well as a Ph.D. at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She contributed more than 150 articles to academic journals presenting papers at aesthetics and semiotics conferences in more than 20 countries. Founder and president (2007-2011) of Asociación Mexicana de Estudios en Estética, member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, a researcher at the National System of Researchers SNI (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores) since 1995, delegate at Executive Committee of the International Association for Aesthetics, and member of the International Editorial Board of various academic journals on aesthetics, culture, design, and semiotics. She received First National Prize in experimental Art for Histogram monumental installation in 1985 and for Tale of a Child, audiovisual art in 1982 by the National Institute of Fine Arts exhibiting in museums and galleries in Mexico and abroad since 1978. Her work Histogram: Income Distribution in Mexico is permanently displayed at the Library Plaza of Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana at Xochimilco campus. Mandoki has been a professor and researcher at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana since 1980, now retired and living in Jerusalem as a street photographer or flâneuse experiencing and witnessing everyday aesthetics directly.
Full CV
Contact
kmandoki (at) gmail.com