Question

What would dark joy aesthetics look like, and how might people with macabre tastes benefit from them?

Defining joy

Broadly speaking, when psychologists use the word “joy,” they mean an intense, momentary experience of positive emotion, one that can be recognized by certain telltale signs: smiling, laughing, and a feeling of wanting to jump up and down. While contentment is curled up on the sofa, and bliss is lost in tranquil meditation, joy is skipping, jiving, twirling, giggling. It is a uniquely exuberant emotion, a high-energy form of happiness.

Defining “dark joy aesthetics”

Joyful spaces are environments that elicit an intense, momentary experience of positive emotion by taking advantage of at least one of the joy inducing aesthetics explored in the book.

Dark joy aesthetics are the angsty siblings. They still provide all the feelings of joy, but they are more likely to appeal to the Addams Family than the Brady Bunch.

Types of joy inducing aesthetics explored in the book:

• Energy: the joy we find in elements that are vibrant and that make spaces feel alive.

• Abundance: the joy we find in quantity and variety of sensory stimulation.

• Freedom: the joy we find in open or natural spaces.

• Harmony: the joy we find in balance and rhythm.

• Play: the joy we find in elements that motivate our inner child.

• Surprise: the joy we find in novelty.

• Transcendence: the joy we find in experiences of lightness and elevation.

• Magic: the joy we find in elements that inspire our sense of wonder.

• Celebration: the joy we find in celebration.

• Renewal: the joy we find in anticipation and cyclical impermanence.

Defining “macabre tastes”

In works of art, the adjective macabre means having the quality of a grim or ghastly atmosphere.

Defining “benefit”

Improvements to our health, mental health, and wellbeing.

Author’s Definition

Joy is high-energy happiness, and the energy aesthetic is the visual manifestation of this energy in our lives: bright colour and warm, sunny light. As the German painter Johannes Itten once said, “Color is life; for a world without colours appears to us as dead.” Pops of colour and light can be like caffeine for the eyes. Turn to this aesthetic when you want to revitalize dull spaces and energize the people in them.

Macabre Modification

In a world rife with life, we can take advantage of the dark side of the energy aesthetic by appreciating the vibrancy in death. With a little necromancy we can revive a lifeless location by inviting dead elements inside. Vampires, welcome!

Reminders of Mortality

Day of the Dead, which is celebrated mostly in Mexico on November 1 and 2, is like a family reunion—except dead ancestors are the guests of honour. Day of the Dead is a joyful time that helps people remember the deceased and celebrate their memory. 🔗 / National Geographic /

The energy aesthetic breathes life into spaces. And death is just another part of life. Momento mori are symbolic reminders of the inevitability of death. Oftentimes, these come in the form of skull visuals. Reminders of death may seem morbid and dark to most, but to others, they serve as fuel for life. Incorporating symbols of the reaper motivate us to enjoy life while we have it.

Dried Plants

Greenery can give our spaces a generous burst of energy. But, like the Devil himself, they love a contract. If we don’t agree to feed them water, sun, soil, and the occasional fresh pot, then our contract contingencies kick in. They suck the energy from our spaces as payment for our broken contract. They wilt and brown and litter their leaves. They become an eye sore and a constant reminder of how we’ve failed them. Dried plants, however, have no such contract. They can offer us the same natural vibrancy without any threat of retribution for neglect.

Edi Rama

Then mayor of Tirana, now prime minister of Albania

🔗 / Photo Origin /

An artist by training, Rama sketched the first designs himself, choosing vibrant hues and gaudy patterns that disrupted the bleakness of the urban landscape. The orange building was joined by others as Rama’s project quickly spread throughout the city, enveloping public and private buildings alike. At first, the reactions were mixed: some citizens were horrified, others curious, a few delighted. But soon after, strange things began to happen. People stopped littering in the streets. They started to pay their taxes. Shopkeepers removed the metal grates from their windows. They claimed the streets felt safer, even though there were no more police than before. People began to gather in cafés again and talk of raising their children in a new kind of city. Nothing had changed, except on the surface. A few patches of red and yellow, turquoise and violet. And yet everything had changed. The city was alive, ebullient. Joyful.

Publicolor

Publicolor’s Paint Club is an after school youth development program, where students get to breathe life into their schools by painting its spaces fun vibrant colours.

After Publicolor interventions, schools notice a near complete disappearance in graffiti and an improvement in student attendance. Both students and teachers consistently report that they feel safer in their schools after these colourful upgrades.

Author’s Definition

The aesthetic of abundance is the “kid in a candy store” feeling, and it stems from the joy we find in quantity and variety. But abundance doesn’t necessarily have to mean material abundance and the accumulation of stuff. Just as powerful is sensorial abundance, achieved through repeating patterns like polka dots and stripes, the layering of textures, and the use of multicolor palettes. Using these aesthetics can help create a space that reveals the truth of Mae West’s famous maxim: “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.”

Macabre Modification

Our eyes are often inundated with sensory stimulation. The dark side of the abundance aesthetic saves us from vision fatigue by looking to where we can find abundance in darkness.

Turn off the Lights

“It’s a sensual dining experience like no other!” states O.NOIR founder and former owner Moe Alameddine, “[w]hen you eat food in the dark, your remaining senses are heightened to savour the smell and taste of food. Even everyday dishes like potatoes and yogurt take on a culinary flare.” / O.NOIR /

For some, sensorial abundance of one sense can be heightened by depriving input to another. For example, there are restaurants around the globe that serve to provide customers a better understanding of what it’s like to be blind. With wait staffs often consisting of visually impaired people, these restaurants provide a dining atmosphere completely immersed in the darkness, giving us the opportunity to switch our enjoyment from visual abundance to gustatory abundance.

Turn off the Input

Depriving a single sense has the ability to bolster the capacity for joy of another. But where does this capacity for joy go when all senses are being deprived? Sensory deprivation tanks are odourless, quiet tubs immersed in darkness & filled with water fully saturated with enough salt that it becomes impossible to sink. Some people who meditate in these tanks report experiencing hallucinations. It seems like sensory deprivation might under some circumstances unlock a more abundant sensory world outside of physical sensation.

Mice

Studies of mice show that mice who spend more time in sensorially enriched environments perform far better on tests of learning and memory, compared to their peers who were raised in sterile environments or ordinary cages.

Snoezelen Therapy

A therapy called Snoezelen is used to treat developmental disabilities, brain injury, and dementia. Snoezelen, a portmanteau of two charmingly onomatopoeic Dutch words, snuffelen (to sniff) and doezelen (to doze), is a practice of creating multisensory environments and letting patients gravitate to sensations that feel good to them. Snoezelen rooms look a little bit like psychedelic lounges from the 1970s, complete with cushy furniture, swirly holograms, moving light displays, and colorful bubbling tubes of water that resemble Lava lamps. Many include aromas, like orange or strawberry, and music as well. Trippy as they seem, the intensely pleasurable sensations they offer can have a real influence on mood and behavior, without the side effects that come with medication. Caregivers report that the sensations bring dementia patients out of a withdrawn state. Their eyes snap open; they reach for things; they laugh. Research on Snoezelen therapy is still in its early stages, but studies show that adding sessions of Snoezelen therapy to standard psychiatric care reduces apathy and agitation among elderly dementia patients, and it alters neurological activity of brain-injured patients in ways similar to meditation. In Canada, some long-term-care facilities have found Snoezelen helpful in reducing their need to control problem behaviors with antipsychotic drugs.

Author’s Definition

Some of the most joyful moments in life are the ones in which we gain a kind of freedom. Think of the ecstatic opening of the school doors on the last day before summer break or the buzz in the office when the clock strikes five on a Friday. Joy thrives on the alleviation of constraints. The delicious stretch you feel in your legs on stepping out of the car at a rest stop after many hours of driving is a joyful freedom. So is sleeping under the stars, riding in a convertible, and skinny-dipping, feeling cool water against bare skin.

Macabre Modification

Risk is the dark sibling to freedom. It comes with all of the joyful exhilaration, plus an adrenaline rush of uncertain trust.

Dark Naturalism

There’s a sort of freedom that comes from being immersed in such darkness that you can’t see in front of you. It’s an almost expansive dread that normal people might experience in deep oceans, outer space, and blindingly thick mist. But for some, the freedom of falling or navigating through a potentially infinite dark space is a frightfully joyful prospect.

Bondage

In some circumstances, there’s nothing that feels more joyfully liberating than being tied down. For some, this joy aesthetic is expressed in their bedroom (or dungeon). But for most others, this is the type of joy we feel on rollercoasters or rock climbing. In either case, once the harness comes on we know we’re in for a wild ride.

Violence

Frances Kuo and William Sullivan, the founders of the Landscape and Human Health Lab at the University of Illinois, have found significant correlations between a lack of green space and violence among residents in large housing projects in Chicago. In a notable study, they examined police crime reports for ninety-eight buildings in the Ida B. Wells housing project, finding that buildings with more surrounding vegetation had 50 percent fewer crimes than those with minimal greenery.

Prisons

A similar effect has been seen in prisons. Inmates have been shown to display fewer aggressive traits after watching nature videos.

Author’s Definition

Underneath the joy we find in a well-organized closet or a perfectly symmetrical seashell lie powerful principles of balance and rhythm, which together create a feeling of joyful harmony. The symmetrical shapes and geometric patterns of the harmony aesthetic combat a sense of disorder or chaos in the outer world, and enables the smooth flow of daily life, both physically and mentally.

Macabre Modification

Chaos is in the eye of the beholder. What looks like pandemonium to one, is a harmonious arrangement of elements into a cohesive whole to another. The dark side of the harmony aesthetic is ordered chaos.

Chain Reactions

The practice of appreciating and building complex systems is a joyful art form for many. Watchmakers, rube goldberg machine builders, and domino effect initiators experience the harmony aesthetic by introducing as much chaos into their systems as possible. And it all comes together in a perfectly harmonious way.

Kintsugi

A harmonious system works seamlessly. One crack in a system can disrupt what was once a well-balanced rhythm. But the dark side of the harmony aesthetic takes advantage of the disruption and highlights the cracks in a joyful way. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing shattered pottery by gluing the pieces back together with gold lacquer.

Broken Windows Theory

Broken windows theory asserts that the presence of disorderly signals, like graffiti and litter, increase the likelihood of more serious crimes.

Disordered Spaces

Researchers at the University of Chicago showed 200 people pictures of disordered spaces — ones with asymmetrical and uneven lines. Another group were shown images of orderly environments. Each group had taken a math test upon arriving at the lab. After looking through the photos, they were asked to grade themselves on their previous test, using the honour system. Those who had been exposed to the disorderly environments were more likely to cheat, and to cheat by bigger amounts, than those who had viewed the more harmonious scenes.

Author’s Definition

We all have an innate drive to play, and this impulse is one of our most natural and effortless sources of joy.

Macabre Modification

Our inner child has a dark side. They’re impulsive, morbidly curious, and unrestricted by our well-developed code of ethics. The dark side of the play aesthetic is one that allows our inner brat to delight in their selfish desires.

Dark Fanfare

Dark fanfare is the joy found in subverting the good-spirited energy of circuses and carnivals by dramatizing their creepier interpretations. It’s a distorted fun house mirror of the cheerful festivities that we’re used to. And it’s a great way for the dark side of our inner child to indulge in morbid curiosity.

Carnal Desire

Our inner child is driven by id. It’s innate desire is impulsive, aggressive, and carnal. The dark side of the play aesthetic can be found in the aggressive games we’ve grown to enjoy. What once took the form of us cheering on the spectacle of gladiators fighting to death in the dome, has now evolved into our lust for boxing, fighting, shooting games, paintball, laser tag, and wrestling.

Trace Drawing

In a series of studies, people were asked to trace a drawing either with swooping lines that forced their arms to move in fluid curves or angular lines that produced herky-jerky movements. Then they were given a creative task. Participants who moved fluidly were able to generate more ideas for uses of a newspaper, and the ideas they came up with were more original. (For example, a typical use of a newspaper might be to cover the floor with it when training a puppy. An original idea might be to use it to transfer text onto wet nail polish.) Curvilinear movements seemed to unlock a more flexible thought pattern, which in turn heightened creativity.

School Curves

Curved lines are a frequent characteristic in the play aesthetic (balls, skating rinks, hula hoops…).

New Haven–based architecture firm Svigals + Partners took to redesigning The Sandy Hook Elementary School after a devastating shooting in 2012. With security at the forefront of everyone’s mind, the updated playful architecture is curved, increasing the natural surveillance of the school.

Author’s Definition

Surprise is a feeling distinct from joy, and yet they so often come together. We can be surprised by the pop of a firecracker, the stripes of a new shop’s awning in the neighbourhood, the particular size and shape of a “thank you” note amongst the junk mail. Joyful surprises help to break the monotony of routines and can prompt us to reexamine preconceived notions and stereotypes. We use this aesthetic when we wrap presents, line our drawers with colourful paper, or play with norms around the scale and proportions of the objects in our surroundings.

Macabre Modification

The dark side of joyful surprise is joyful fear. It takes a more twisted approach to shocking us out of or usual routines through the joy we find in novelty.

Haunted Houses

Haunted houses are the epitome of joyful fear. By shaking up the homey comforts that we’ve grown accustomed to, they treat us to an array of unexpected surprises.

Scary Movies

A lot of us don’t have to look too far to find the dark surprise aesthetic. For those of us who love a good horror movie, we know that a jump scare can inspire a distorted emotion right at the crux of both joy and fear.

Fear temporarily boosts our immune system.

🔗 / Study /

In one study, participants were shown a horror flick. Their blood samples were taken before and after the viewing. The results showed that fear responses caused them to experience a lift in activated white blood cells, the type of cells that enable us to fight disease and which repair our body.

Fear socializes us and bonds us to other people.

Oxytocin is a hormone associated with prosocial behaviour. When we feel fear, we also experience a boost in oxytocin as our body’s way of heeding us to seek out the comfort of others.

Author’s Definition

It sometimes seems as if our emotions lie along a vertical spectrum. We feel uplifted, or lighter than air when joyful, down or heavy-hearted when sad. So it’s not surprising that experiences of lightness and elevation can evoke a transcendent feeling of joy. Watching a balloon drift or a butterfly flit, gazing up at the clouds or a cathedral’s vaulted ceiling, or peering out the window of a treehouse or airplane, we feel a shift in perspective that helps us zoom out from mundane concerns and infuse a sense of buoyancy into our daily lives.

Macabre Modification

The dark side of transcendence weighs more than its light counterpart. It gets its joy from manipulating our perception weight.

Weighted Levity

A dark twist of the transcendence aesthetic occurs when levity meets weight. In instances of this we are able to find joy in things that we expect to be light, but are in fact heavy: water balloons and Koons sculptures are good examples.

Light Weight

Opposite to weighted levity, sometimes joy comes from feeling of weightlessness that results from the weighted force of gravity. Skiing, hang gliding, drop zones…

Overview effect

The overview effect is a more intense version of wonder that brings about a sense of the interconnectedness of life. It’s a common transcendent feeling reported by astronauts.

Pressure Therapy

A light cozy blanket can be all the comfort we need at the end of a long day. But wrapping ourselves up in a weighted blanket has been shown to alleviate stress and improve sleep quality. Deep pressure stimulation uses pressure to relax the nervous system. It simulates the feeling of being hugged. With weighted blankets, the pressure comes not from another person but from having the blanket wrapped around the body.

Author’s Definition

As children, the world of magic blends seamlessly with the real one, but as we get older, we feel pressure to leave magic behind. Still, human life is filled with natural mysteries — the Aurora Borealis, magnetism, fog, wind, and the pulsing of fireflies — that elicit a powerful sense of wonder that challenges our understanding of the world and opens us up to new discoveries.

Macabre Modification

The dark magic aesthetic inspires our sense of wonder for the joy we can find in darkness.

Pyromania

Acting as both one of the most mesmerizing and destructive natural forces, fire has no problem satisfying our dark sense of wonder. Roasting marshmallows over a campfire, fire breathing buskers, candles… As dangerous as it is, fire is also a diverse source of joy.

Infinity Rooms

Yayoi Kusama’s infinity mirror rooms have become an international sensation and such a pure source of wonder and joy. My personal favourite room, titled “The Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity” is almost literally an infinite source of wonder.

Ambiguous Spaces

Situations rich in ambiguity have a tendency to spur magical thinking. When we witness something mysterious, our sense of certainty about the world dissolves. Our eyes open wider and our curiosity becomes insatiable.

Unselfing

🔗 /HBR Article on Awe/

In a study, one group of participants were led to experience awe. Afterward, they were asked to draw pictures of themselves. Those who experienced awe literally drew themselves smaller in size. This effect has been termed “unselfing.”

"I didn't feel like a giant, I felt very very small." — Astronaut Niel Armstrong's reaction upon looking back at the earth from the moon.

Through feeling awe, we are drawn out of ourselves and toward others and we’re inspired toward pro-social behaviour like generosity and compassion.

Author’s Definition

The word joy comes from the same root as the word rejoice, so celebration is inherent in the concept of joy. When we come together to share good news, the result is a kind of communal joy that is larger than the sum of its parts. Joy spreads infectiously through laughter, music, dance, and the upswept, open-armed gestures of merrymaking. We can harness this festive joy with aesthetic elements that amplify the effervescent, dynamic qualities of our natural expressions of joy: bursting shapes like those of fireworks and starbursts, sparkling lights and glittering materials that scatter light, and strong rhythms that unite a group in synchronized song or movement.

Macabre Modification

The dark side of the celebration aesthetic is malicious joy. The darkest quality of communal joy lies in Schadenfreude and in the celebration of other people’s misery.

Spectator Sports

The joy in celebrating other’s misery is a dark side of the celebration aesthetic. This spectator sport, in its most historically pathological form, masses would rejoice in guillotine ceremonies. Today, Fail videos and violent sports seem to suffice for the most part in sustaining this form of dark joy.

Piñatas

What better manifestation malicious joy than people coming together to beat the hell out of something with a stick.

Brain Rewards

🔗 / Study /

In one study 19 volunteers were asked to read scenarios describing the successes and misfortunes of fictional characters. They were then asked to report their feelings about the characters, while their brains were being scanned. The researchers found that when the participants reported feeling envy, a brain region known for playing a role in processing physical pain became active. The brains of participants who felt schadenfreude were activated in regions which process rewards. Showing that revelling in other people’s misery feels good.

Moral Compass

🔗 / Study /

Another study suggests that schadenfreude might be a part in the normal development of our moral compasses. Researchers put on a puppet play for a group of young participants. Among the puppets, there were sympathetic characters and a villain. The study demonstrated that 4-5 year-olds didn’t show any differentiated behaviour towards the two character types. The 6 year olds, on the other hand, were joyful when they saw villains suffering.

Author’s Definition

Some of life’s greatest joys are fleeting, like the delight of watching the cherry blossoms flower in spring, the falling of snow, or the brief season of a favourite fruit. Joy isn’t a constant state, but one that ebbs and flows over time. Yet joy’s cyclical nature can sometimes get lost in the solidity and stasis of the manmade world. We can restore a dynamic quality to the built environment by incorporating aesthetics of renewal: blossoming shapes (flowers and flower-like forms), spirals, and S-curves that suggest expansion, potential, and growth.

Macabre Modification

The dark side of the renewal aesthetic is impermanent destruction. The act of destroying something knowing that it’s carnage will be temporary.

Sand Mandela

The Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and destruction of mandalas made from coloured sand. Once complete, the sand mandala's ritualistic dismantling is accompanied by ceremonies and viewing to symbolize Buddhist doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life.

Rage Rooms

Few places in the world give us the permission to let our inner demon rampage. Havoc is generally taboo. Rage rooms are rare spaces where we are encouraged to vent our range by destroying objects.

Anticipation

The hopes and dreams we aspire to in life are often under constant states of shatter, repair, and transformation. But creating these detailed mental simulations are believed to be the reason studies have found that periods of anticipation can drastically enhance the joy that we feel.

Pretend Permanence

“I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments.” — Neil Gaiman