J.F. Martel is a writer and filmmaker living in Ottawa, Canada. He is the author of Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice, published by North Atlantic Books. This episode is a companion to J.F.’s essay, “Consciousness in the Aesthetic Imagination,” published in Metapsychosis.
In this conversation Marco and J.F. discuss:
- the paintings of Vermeer and Van Gogh
- What makes an artwork a “classic”
- art and artifice
- the Church of Art (as a “church without walls”)
- capitalism and alienation
- panpsychism
- the untimely and time-free (achronon)
- art as singularity
- art as nondual multiplicity
- art as direct transmission
- art as a question of “ultimate concern”
- how religion is made out of art
- the aesthetics of Catholicism
- art and communion with the Real
- the mystery of Being and the originary power of art
- art and terrorism
- the Wagnerian vision of art
- art and the power to shape culture
- art and the power to shape our intimate lives
- art as apolitical / amoral
- art and individuality
- using the machinery of capitalism to subvert the machine
- living in interesting times
Mentioned in this Episode
People
- Martin Heidegger
- Paul Tillich
- Salvador Dali
- Oscar Wilde*
- Karl Marx
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Daniel Pinchbeck
- Beyoncé
- Emily Dickinson
- Stanley Kubrick
- Gilles Deleuze
*Editor’s note: In the talk, Marco conflates Wilde’s The Soul of Man Under Socialism with his letter De Profundis.
Books
- The Ever-Present Origin – by Jean Gebser
- Hamlet – by William Shakespeare
- Mao II – by Don DeLillo
Paintings
- Vincent van Gogh, Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers, 1888
- Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, 1662
Credits
Audio Production
Music
“What Does Anybody Know About Anything” and “It’s Always Too Late to Start Over” – by Chris Zabriskie
Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) license