What we’re about
What is beauty? What is your relationship to art? Why is art meaningful? Is art about beauty?
Genius - skill - vision - originality and newness of expression: this group explores the world of art, the aesthetic experience, and sometimes art's relation to theory, criticism, and philosophy.
We look to all types of genre / media from visual arts to poetry / spoken word to music and installation works.
Upcoming events (2)
See all- Movie Discussion: Gertrud (1964) by Carl Theodor DreyerLink visible for attendees
“Gertrud is a film that I made with my heart” — the Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer’s last film neatly crowns his career: a meditation on happiness, individual will, and the refusal to compromise. A woman leaves her unfulfilling marriage and embarks on a search for ideal love — but neither a passionate affair with a younger man nor the return of an old romance can provide the answer she seeks. Always the stylistic innovator, Dreyer employs intricate camera movements, long takes, and theatrical staging to concentrate on Nina Pens Rode’s sublime portrayal of the proud and courageous Gertrud.
"An enigmatically modern film with the deceptive air of a staidly old fashioned one." (The Spectator)
"As richly mysterious and inscrutable as it is earthy and wry." (Slant)
"I would imagine that many would find it unwatchable, or would incorrectly deem it uncinematic, but it understands the language of cinema better than nearly any film that I've seen. Every cut, every pan, every zoom matters." (Rotten Tomatoes)
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Join the Toronto Philosophy Meetup to discuss the 1964 film Gertrud directed and written by the great Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer, recently voted the 136th greatest movie of all time in Sight & Sound's international survey of film critics and scholars, and the 140th greatest movie of all time in the related poll of filmmakers. The film opened to divided responses but is now considered one of Dreyer's best works.
We previously discussed Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Ordet (1955), and Vampyr (1932) in this group.
Please watch the movie in advance and bring your thoughts, reactions, and queries to share with us at the meeting. You can stream the movie for free via a link to be posted on the main event page.
Note: We'll be joined by many other participants from the Toronto Philosophy Meetup at this meeting — https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/events/307471760/ We have movie discussions every Friday.
- McLuhan - Understanding Media - IntroductionPro Musica, Chicago, IL
This is the first session. The initial plan is to read and discuss McLuhan's introduction to the first edition. From there, future meetings may be a mix of assigned reading and live reading.
"... any technology gradually creates a totally new human environment."
We change the world and the world, in turn, changes us. In "Understanding Media", McLuhan provides an approach to analyzing the effects of mediums, understood broadly, on the human condition, and so on humans and humanity, and we may benefit from considering it.
PDF: https://spada.uns.ac.id/pluginfile.php/667112/mod_resource/content/1/metode%20cipta.pdf
Buy: https://bookshop.org/p/books/understanding-media-the-extensions-of-man-marshall-mcluhan/581209
Summary of the book from Wikipedia:
Throughout Understanding Media, McLuhan uses historical quotes and anecdotes to probe the ways in which new forms of media change the perceptions of societies, with specific focus on the effects of each medium as opposed to the content that is transmitted by each medium. McLuhan identified two types of media: "hot" media and "cool" media, drawing from French anthropologist Lévi-Strauss's distinction between hot and cold societies.
This terminology does not refer to the temperature or emotional intensity, nor some kind of classification, but to the degree of participation. Cool media are those that require high participation from users, due to their low definition (the receiver/user must fill in missing information). Since many senses may be used, they foster involvement. Conversely, hot media are low in audience participation due to their high resolution or definition. Film, for example, is defined as a hot medium, since in the context of a dark movie theater, the viewer is completely captivated, and one primary sense—visual—is filled in high definition. In contrast, television is a cool medium, since many other things may be going on and the viewer has to integrate all of the sounds and sights in the context.
In Part One, McLuhan discusses the differences between hot and cool media and the ways that one medium translates the content of another medium. Briefly, "the content of a medium is always another medium".
In Part Two, McLuhan analyzes each medium (circa 1964) in a manner that exposes the form, rather than the content of each medium. In order, McLuhan covers:
- The Spoken Word;
- The Written Word (i.e., manuscript or incunabulum);
- Roads and Paper Routes;
- Numbers;
- Clothing;
- Housing;
- Money;
- Clocks;
- The Print (i.e., pictorial lithograph or woodcut);
- Comics;
- The Printed Word (i.e., typography);
- The Wheel;
- The Bicycle and Airplane;
- The Photograph;
- The Press;
- The Motorcar;
- Ads;
- Games;
- The Telegraph;
- The Typewriter;
- The Telephone;
- The Phonograph;
- Movies;
- Radio;
- Television;
- Weapons; and
- Automation.
