Aristotle on art, conceptual layers and inner value

Posted on 27/01/2012 by W&V

Quote about art from Greek philosopher Aristotle which can especially be considered as an early statement about conceptual art and design as it addresses directly the core principle of a conceptual design approach and the resulting physical product and its inner value, meaning and significance.

The Greek philosopher and polymath Aristotle was a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoölogy. Together with Plato and Plato’s teacher Socrates, Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy.

Immanuel Kant on thoughts, intuitions and concepts

Posted on 02/12/2011 by W&V

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant, researched, lectured and wrote on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment. At the time, there were major successes and advances in the sciences (for example: Isaac Newton, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Robert Boyle) using reason and logic. But this stood in sharp contrast to the scepticism and lack of agreement or progress in empiricist philosophy.

Kant’s magnum opus, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781), aimed to unite reason with experience to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He hoped to end an age of speculation where objects outside experience were used to support what he saw as futile theories, while opposing the scepticism of thinkers such as Descartes, Berkeley and Hume.

Henri Bergson on sex appeal

Posted on 31/05/2011 by W&V

Henri Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality. He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature “in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented.

Fashion quote | Epictetus on identity, look and dressing up

Posted on 31/03/2011 by W&V

Epictetus was a Greek philosopher. The Philosophy, he taught, is a way of life and not just a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control, but we can accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. Individuals, however, are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power. As part of the universal city that is the universe, human beings have a duty to care for all fellow humans. The person who followed these precepts would achieve happiness and peace of mind according to Epictetus.

Vangelis Paterakis | Shadow life

Posted on 01/12/2010 by W&V

Vangelis Paterakis is a Greek photographer and artist. For his commissioned work he collaborated often on editorials for magazines and with advertising companies.

Shadow life is a second series of art photos after his shadow series.
Vangelis Paterakis says himself about this work:
“It is a second creation of organisms that make up an unnoticed realm of life as we don’t know it”
With Shadow Life Vangelis Paterakis continues seeking bodies that give birth to new figures and shadows that rise new souls. His pictures remain familiar and their figures emit an instant mood for creation, annihilating the stillness of the picture offering to the spectator a side of life far from its daily perception. He gives shape to the human shadow that immaterial element of us all an indefinite subject that appears when light strikes a surface only to then melt away and blend in with the surrounding surfaces. The concept and images create a fascinating space for philosophical reflections and remind us of a line written by the Swiss thinker Carl Justav Jung:
“Contact with our shadows allows us to identify more closely with ourselves and touch a profound part of very being.”