Contemporary Aesthetics and Art Theory

What is the relevance of theoretical studies when it comes to understanding art? We can question what purpose is served by seeking to comprehend, for instance, the visual through a different medium, namely, the textual. Why, indeed, should one attempt to make sense of the ineffable visual by using words? Such a scepticism is understandable when theorists impose definitions and categories on art regardless of its unique qualities or what the artist seeks to express. This course does not aim to offer prescriptive ‘recipes’ to establish what art practice essentially means. Instead, it seeks to foster a philosophical dialogue with art, enabling both theory and practice to enrich and renew one another.

Lectures

1. Trace and Temporality in the Work of Pascal Convert (relief, 2008)

2. Narration, incidences, and coincidences in Babel (film, dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006)

3. The Such-ness of the Uncanny in Marlène Mocquet’s paintings (2007)

4. Gazing and Being Gazed at: Martin Heidegger’s Words and Deborah Baker’s Photographs in Dialogue (2001)

5. Representation and Presencing in the Still Life Today after Aristotle (2003)

6. Beauty or the End of Temporality in Death in Venice (film, dir. Luchino Visconti, 1971)

7. Synaesthesia, colours, and sounds in Olivier Messiaen’s  Couleurs de la Cité Céleste (music, 1963)

8. The Temporal Place of Silence in Harold Pinter’s The Room (play, 1957)

9. Sacrificing the Sacred in Exile: Ninar Esber’s Video-performances (2004-2006)

10. Performing Images in Eiléan ní Chuilleanáin’s Poem Studying the Language (1995)