talkPOPc's Podcast

Timestamps: 00:35: Artistic mindset? Juggling and adopting an attitude of accepting charitability towards concepts 01:35: How can we do cognition like art? How can our cognitive capacities learn from Art and aesthetic experiences? 02:45: Making art requires flipping the switch. But when we do that, do we apply it everywhere? 04:00: No such thing as a bad concept. This vs That is immaterial. Schema...

Timestamps: 00:30: Laying the groundwork. What is Art as Cognition? Cognition as an intellectual process. Higher order brain activity, and Robinson's "Deeper than Reason" 02:00: Philosophy of Emotion. Are emotions things that come from automatic reactions, or are they conceptual? How much brain activity does an emotion need? 03:10: Should we separate thought and emotion?  05:10: Low...

talkPOPc Participant Oralie in conversation with Resident Philosopher Nicholas Whittaker on Biology and the limits of Observation and Meaning-making. Timestamps: 00:55: Understanding the world through Aesthetic. The immediacy of Art and the ability to grab us, intertwined with the cognitive process. Meaning-making Machines 02:20: The biological programming of Art. We're biological beings and...

Timestamps: 00:20: 2 Ways to View Art as Cognition: Art as a way to express cognition vs Cognition is a form of Art 02:25: Blank Page: Pure thought, consciousness and reality against physical objects. 05:15: Physical Interaction with the World: No physical brain, no consciousness.  07:15: Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transparent Eyeball: Erasing the self and observing 10:00: Philosophical Thought:...

Timestamps: 00:34: Art as Cognition: What does it mean? Everything you look at can be a snapshot of beauty. Perceptions of art and how you value it 01:45: What is Art: Breaking it down. What counts as art and what doesn't? 02:35: Pricing Authenticity 04:20: Robert Hughes: Art has to be different rather than good. Provoke thought vs beauty 06:15: History Decides Which Art is Important 08:50: A...

Timestamps: 00:20: Art and Thinking: Do we think about Art enough? Counseling and therapy/catharsis through Art.  02:30: Picasso and the Coloring Book: Is any drawing art? Or are the "good" drawing art? 05:00: Masterpieces and Special Elements of Cognition: What is it that these geniuses have? But wait, what cognitive powers do we as humans possess that allow us to engage in art? 08:00:...

Timestamps: 00:25: Art as Cognition, Ekphrasis and reactions toward imagery in the subconscious 01:35: Art as a unique artifact. Cutting through the noise 02:35: Modern Art, Duchamp's readymades, Art, bananas. What is Art depends on perception. What is an Artist? 04:00: The Swamp Table, not an artifact, but identical to it. Is it Art? And Foucault's take on an Author and Shakespeare.  05...

Timestamps: 00:28: Art as an Accessibility Tool: Coping, feeling feelings 01:45: Philosophy's History: Hyper-rationalism. Ability to form conscious propositional thought 02:45: Art isn't Always Rational: A tool that can be used and misused 04:28: We're Complicated: Maze of feelings, dead-ends and exits 05:47: Art & Irrationality: What moves us? Maybe not documentaries.  06:15: P...

Timestamps: 00:19: Defining Art as Cognition: We're still arguing about what Art and Cognition mean 03:15: Duchamp & What art can be: The social world and interconnectivity. 04:15: Art is High Cognition: Cognition in the process of crafting. 05:55: Modern Art, Michael Fried: Paintings don't care about you. The enclosed world in self-contained art. 09:15: Art as a Crystallized Moment:...

Timestamps: 00:20: First Impressions of Art as Cognition 01:00: Art is an expression of the mind. Expressing the self 02:08: Expressionists: Showing the world through painting. Why should I show you what things look like? Shouldn't I make a statement about me instead? 04:05: A Move towards Existentialism: What is on the inside vs outside.  05:05: Descartes, Kant and the Exterior World: Does t...

Timestamps: 00:35: Elaine and Nicholas tackle the definition of Art as Cognition via first impressions. "Your immediate impulse in response to a blank page, without thinking." 01:30: We're in a virtual world, but we still make motions perpetually all in the idea of virtual cognition 03:19: Aesthetic Cognition almost implies a design of inherited gestures and movements that were alre...

Jacob, a pre-med student, talks about how visual gist (in the first 300 ms) is something similar to an interpersonal immediate impression - how we like something or want something or we are repelled by it.  The brain has to filter out information, Jacob notes, and so evolution has allowed us to do that. He also wants to tie this to moral revulsion and brings in Jonathan Haidt's writings on th...

In a rich and complex conversation, John Palmer, a software engineer and recently influenced by James Gibson's writing, discusses virtual worlds in game design and computer environments. Shottenkirk, who has noted that this relies on perception and thus is right up the alley of issues of art and cognition, listens as John discusses the important notion of affordances, a term coined by Gibson...

Nicholas starts the conversation by saying that he has recently experienced a renewed interest in making art himself, which he hadn't done since a child. He is also a regular meditator, and argues that art "is one of the best forms of meditation."   As someone who is in the film industry,  he says (& RP Flores agrees) that David Lynch is a great filmmaker,  with Nicholas pointin...

RP Shottenkirk and participant Nicola Johnson discuss fashion: what makes it good or bad, and why we care. "It goes back to the mind" Nicola says at the beginning of the conversation and she expounds on that point in several different ways. "It tells something about me - my financial status, my taste, my social status. " Shottenkirk notes that Nicola's shoes are amazing, w...

talkPOPc participant Mark Friedman begins the conversation with  Resident Philosopher Carolina Flores by talking about the Italian Renaissance, in particular the Ghiberti doors n Florence, which is where he spent his study-abroad year as a college student. Flores points out that when you see something in person and study it in person it is so different than seeing it also; noting that perhaps it&a...

Ian Olasov begins the conversation with the point that philosophy can play a role in how we get out of the pandemic by building community.  Alex  brings in the problematic issue of mask-wearing, and how though he has self-identified as "not that courteous or respectful of others" he does see the general case for masks at least indoor.  The conversation ranges widely and wildly, with Alex...

Resident Philosopher Ian Olasov and talkPOPc Participant Eva Pilay discuss how art and philosophy can both allow people to re-emerge from the pandemic, allowing people to be united and socialized: objects of shared attention. But Eva points out that propaganda does the same thing; Olasov agrees and then says if it's attention to something good then it's good socializing but not so much i...

In answer to Flores' question, "What's the latest art piece that spoke to you?" Botti answers Robert Altman's Three Women , which is about conveying emotions instead of telling a story. Flores asks if movies can express pure emotion as well as music? Botti answers that movies rely so much on music, pictures, etc., that are borrowed from other art forms, and it brings up th...

Nayanci Lopez, who hosts the philosophy/comedy podcast "But Why Not? A philosophy themed comedy podcast!" discusses with RP Olasov why we make art - do we do it for a purpose or is it just something that we have to do?  If it's about beauty that's a bit of a problem because our notion of beauty changes over time. They agreed that although our notions of concepts are built over...

Resident Philosopher Ian Olasov makes the point that even though the usual media you use to do philosophy - writing journal articles, etc., could be extended and one could also do philosophy through sculpture or other media. Joshua thinks of Picasso's Guernica and the reference to war - "what man can do to man". But also when we talk about "art" the term becomes expansive,...

Shannon starts with the belief that everyone is creative and able to make art in some kind of way, which she discovered when she first took a drawing and painting class in high school. Her new desire is to act, but feels apprehensive about it because, in RP Flores' words "you're on the line".  They discuss the difficulties of performance and the line between one's art and...

Gaston discusses the effects of Covid on people and on art. For him, covid has made people rethink what they value and what they want in their lives. People have purged their homes, and rethought what they wanted. But covid has also had the effect on artists - lots of small producers have not been able to produce, and people now buy from ebay instead of CD Baby.  The larger corporations are just t...

Summer of 2020: talkPOPc sets up next to the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn and speechwriter Marjorie Sweeney talks about social role of art.  She agrees to the obvious fact that there is great individualism in art, but her point is that there are also great social and political functions. Wanting to create is a natural human urge & all children show this, but adults are far more inhibited - we wou...

Joan, a lawyer in NYC, got her undergraduate degree in art history, and here in the talkPOPc tent discusses the political role of art, comparing today's world to the art of the medieval world. Using Bronzino's chapel of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio, Joan refers to the sociology of that world and how art reinforced power relations. Bronzino, who came right after Michelangelo, was like...