Aesthetics, Politics and Art
Group Reference: RG-PHIL-Norte-Porto-502-983
Time Interval: 2007-2010; 2011-2012; 2013-2014
Location of Group (Host Institution): Instituto de Filosofia / Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto
Principal Investigator: Prof.ª Doutora Maria Eugénia Morais Vilela
Objectives
The research to be accomplished by the group focuses on the intersection of philosophical work with three core areas of investigation: Aesthetics, Contemporary Political Philosophy and the Arts. Starting from different configurations of the artistic creative gesture, we aim at thinking contemporary political space.
With a strong component of 20th century philosophy, authors who have brought up a transfiguration of the notion of historic time will be taken into account. This approach will help us to put the relation between history, memory and forgetfulness into perspective, so as to de-construct the classical notion of testimony. This will emerge from the implication between the notions of narration, body, silence, resistance and language. The reflection will be developed along the lines of the works of philosophers such as W. Benjamin, M. Blanchot, H. Arendt, M. Foucault, G. Deleuze, J. Derrida, J-L. Nancy and G. Agamben.
We believe that creative gesture may be the way to understand the temporal dimension of an individual facing the limit-movement of infancy and death. In this movement we find the roots of an action marked by the confrontation between the whole and nothingness. Focusing on this action will enable us to reflect on the configuration of situations of extreme violence emerging in our times. Efforts will be made to create a possible archive of the new forms of camp which have spread in different juridically recognized territories. The concepts of biopolitics and event will be brought to bear, as a way of thinking the paradox that is laid in a singular body seen as a space-time of meaning inside a muteness imposed by politics of silence.
We will look upon different forms of art, each in their own singular manifestation, as ways of translating an event with no translation. Dance, drawing, cinema and photography will take place in a reflection where framing is thought of as an act where the philosophical notions of experience, conflict and meaning are questioned. Through an articulation between philosophical thought, aesthetics, politics and the arts a path is opened as a way of approaching the relation between the work of art and its making and the political transformation of reality.
In dialogue with different traditions of philosophical thought, with rigorous and innovating questioning, this project will bring together academia, contemporary art foundations and individual artists. It is our aim to promote direct contacts between national and international researchers so as to fulfil the purposes of dissemination, internationalization and opening of the research produced by the group to the community.
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