Point Centre for Contemporary Art
2, Evagorou Avenue, 1097 Nicosia, Cyprus
This series of seminars, led by Dr. Christos Hadjioannou and Dr. Andreas Vrahimis, will focus on ideas about art and aesthetics developed by the twentieth century philosophical movement known as Phenomenology. A number of seminal texts in the phenomenological movement have devoted significant attention to the arts, e.g. Martin Heidegger’s thought on the relationship between world and work of art, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s writings on Cezanne, Impressionism and perception, Roman Ingarden’s work on aesthetics, to name but a few. Phenomenological ideas have been influential in various fields relating to the arts such as architectural theory (e.g. in the work of Christian Norberg-Schulz), the theorization of acousmatic music (e.g. in the theoretical work of Pierre Schaeffer), literary theory (in particular through the influence of hermeneutics), visual art, poetry, drama, film, etc.
The seminars will begin by introducing basic concepts in the phenomenological tradition, and move on to a careful reading and group discussion of a selection of texts that relate phenomenology to the arts. Texts in the phenomenological tradition are often notoriously difficult to read, and require some guidance. Thus, the seminar conveners will give a series of presentations that will acquaint the participants with the background of each text. These presentations will lead up to a series of group discussions in which the participants will discuss the texts from various perspectives, including those informed by more practical concerns regarding the arts.
The seminars are addressed to anyone interested in the arts broadly conceived (i.e. including music, architecture, dance, literature, film, etc), art theory, or philosophy. They will take place twice a month over a period of six months. They will commence on the second week of February 2016, and will run until the third week of July 2016. Each seminar will last for three hours. The seminars are organized by Point Centre for Contemporary Art, where they will take place. They are undertaken in collaboration with the ‘Format’ group.
For more information visit www.pointcentre.org/ or the Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/pointcentreforcontemporaryart/