Tag: philosophy

by jad

Rothko, Sontag, and a Book Called Fotografare

“The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.” That’s what Mark Rothko said in 1965 about the colorfield work he’s most famous for, an insistence on a “meaning” behind the “abstraction” that his son, Christopher, has reiterated in interviews about the major exhibit he co-curated in Florence this year: “He wanted those who looked at his paintings to experience the same religious experience that he had while creating them.” I’m no art historian and had no sense of his intentions when I encountered a Rothko in real life for … Continue reading “Rothko, Sontag, and a Book Called Fotografare” →

by jad

Overtourism, and Cory Doctorow’s Reverse Centaurs

I’ve been seeing some chatter on here about “overtourism,” a phenomenon that’s viscerally obvious in a city like Florence. And while I’m not above grumbling about the crowds myself, every time the discourse veers into a quasi-actionable register (that proverbial “what is to be done”), I flinch. What is there to be done, really? Because the grumbles never come from people who have not stepped foot on whatever sacred ground is in question; it’s always people who want to be there just as badly as everyone else. And while my heart always goes out to the people who actually live … Continue reading “Overtourism, and Cory Doctorow’s Reverse Centaurs” →

by jad

Barthes and the History of Looking

“The portrait-photograph is a closed field of forces. Four image-repertoires intersect here, oppose and distort each other. In front of the lens, I am at the same time: the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he [sic] makes use of to exhibit his art. In other words, a strange action: I do not stop imitating myself, and because of this, each time I am (or let myself be) photographed, I invariably suffer from a sensation of inauthenticity, sometimes of imposture (comparable to … Continue reading “Barthes and the History of Looking” →

by jad

Being, Having, Seeing (More from the Cornish BFA Show)

“If all of the technical forces of capitalism must be understood as tools for the making of separations, in the case of urbanism we are dealing with the equipment at the basis of these technical forces, with the treatment of the ground that suits their deployment, with the very technique of separation.” (Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, as featured in @cloecaroljane’s artist statement at the Cornish BFA exhibit) x “Being, Having, Seeing,” Cloe Caroljane Short @cloecaroljane at the @cornish_artdept BFA exhibit. Everything about this install – from the graphic aesthetic to the post-internet motifs to the naming convention (e.g. … Continue reading “Being, Having, Seeing (More from the Cornish BFA Show)” →

by jad

Beauty in Banal Things (True Self, False Self)

I mentioned yesterday how my anti-car scruples have gone more lax in the past few years, with making a living in this urban fabric being the primary impetus. But there’s also the influence of the photographic eye. I don’t remember ever taking photos of cars in Lebanon; in fact, I spent a long time taking photos of buses. Over here, though, it sometimes feels like cars are the only finely-crafted aesthetic objects around. That says a lot about a place. As the closest thing to public art in deserts of the the capitalist real, cars are synecdoches of time and … Continue reading “Beauty in Banal Things (True Self, False Self)” →

by jad

A710 vs. LX10 (and a Mural That Says Slow Down)

I’m back with another ridiculous camera comparison: the 2006 Canon Powershot A710 IS versus the 2016 LUMIX LX10, which technically still counts as a digicam, I think. What difference could ten years and a jump from 7.1 MP to 20 MP possible make? I took these photos near the spot that Liliana Moreno was murdered by automobile on February 16. I’d heard of this awful tragedy but didn’t realize how close it was to the bus stop I’d be getting off of yesterday—a sobering thought when I get around mostly by foot and public transport. I’m less militantly anti-car than … Continue reading “A710 vs. LX10 (and a Mural That Says Slow Down)” →

by jad

Dada, and Art as a Creature of Its Epoch

“Art, in its production and direction, depends on the time in which it lives, and artists are creatures of their epoch. The highest art will be one in which the thousandfold issues of the day are revealed in its consciousness, an art which allows itself to be noticeably shattered by last week’s explosions, which is forever trying to collect itself after the shock of recent days. The best and most challenging artists will be those who every hour snatch the tatters of their bodies out of the turbulent whirl of life, who, with bleeding hands and hearts, hold fast to … Continue reading “Dada, and Art as a Creature of Its Epoch” →

by jad

Assemblages of Solidarity (End Empire or End the World)

“What is an assemblage? It is a multiplicity which is made up of many heterogeneous terms and which establishes liaisons, relations between them… The assemblage’s only unity is that of co-functioning: it is a symbiosis, a ‘sympathy’.” (Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus) If solidarity is emergent, then: it cannot be declared into existence; it cannot be willed by ideology alone; and it cannot be guaranteed by shared beliefs. It must be built – through organizing forms; through material arrangements; through temporal rhythms; and through shared exposure to risk and consequence. Solidarity is not a moral appeal; it’s … Continue reading “Assemblages of Solidarity (End Empire or End the World)” →

by jad

Janus, Resolutions, and the Rent Gap

There’s a metaphor here somewhere. Art in the interstices of the rent gap. According to Google Street View, this space has been vacant for years – even before the pandemic. The last time a business operated out of this address, it was Zipcar, itself a symptom of a recomposed post-crash economy. Platforms for recirculating value. Prints and misprints. x I’d like to say I read this, but it was a video on my feed. The Romans chose January 1 as the new year because of Janus, the two-faced god of the threshold, at once looking forward and back. But they … Continue reading “Janus, Resolutions, and the Rent Gap” →

by jad

Demystifying Technology (and The Saints Project Debuts)

“There can be no doubt that the personality and the equilibrium of the individual are gravely threatened by technological civilization. Must we conclude that the only solution is to return to the life of pre-industrial society? But such a return presupposes that these societies produced a relatively happy and free humanity; and history, with its record of individual misery, of religious, civil, and foreign wars, shows us that this is not so. Those who make technology directly responsible for the alienation of modern man forget that man has always been more or less alienated, that he has never been the … Continue reading “Demystifying Technology (and The Saints Project Debuts)” →