One of the most persistent ideas in the humanities at large is the hardly ever challenged assumption that the only proper access to aesthetic phenomena is conditioned on exercising appropriate aesthetic competence, or taste. This idea undermines the feasibility of any effort by archaeologists, anthropologists, or art historians to retrieve the original aesthetic status of objects under circumstances that place the researchers firmly outside of the objects’ cultural context. In order to make the aesthetic analysis of remote objects immune to the idea’s paralysing effects, this project treats the conditions of remoteness not as a hindrance to the aesthetic analysis, but as a condition calling for an aesthetic theory (‘remote aesthetics’) that makes the aesthetic analysis of remote objects independent of the model of competent aesthetic judgement or appreciation.

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