Photo Synthesis
September 29, 2013
The camera, even in my childhood a rare item, is a gadget that everyone I know now possesses. We used to choose our shots carefully. There were only 24 or 36 frames on a roll of film, which then required time and money to be developed and made into prints. Any movement led to a …
Propaganda and Art
April 14, 2013
What are we to make of art that is put to some morally dubious purpose? Can we still appreciate it as art or has it become tainted by its use? Politicians are acutely aware of the stirring and motivating power of art and thus it is natural that they put it to use in propaganda, …
Spirituality
March 31, 2013
I have largely avoided one of the biggest topics of all: religion. I have my reasons. Spirituality and religious belief are considered private and sensitive matters. For fear of causing offence, we are often embarrassed to talk about such things publically. Hardly anything in this world is quite so controversial, especially now that so many …
The Soundtrack to your Life
March 24, 2013
Music is probably our greatest invention. What else can so quickly lift our spirits or reduce us to tears, the two often being only seconds apart? Philosophers debate whether music really was an invention. Perhaps it was discovered. It might exist in a Platonic realm, which is our aspiration to comprehend. Certainly there is a …
Do Nothing
March 17, 2013
A few weeks ago I had an early morning flight to take. Due to poor forward planning, I was alone on board with no internet, no book or magazine and little charge on my laptop. In a restless world, such a situation seems almost a punishment to bear. What worse a torture can one inflict …
The Original
March 10, 2013
On the way home from a conference in Utrecht last week I had time to stop off at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. As far as I could tell, they have the biggest and best collection of Van Gogh paintings anywhere in the world. You can stand right in front of a Sunflowers or …
Feedback and Feed Forward
February 10, 2013
The opinions of others, no matter how much one produces art that pleases oneself, are a matter of pressing importance in relation to any creative endeavour. We want to be productive, because it pleases us to exercise our creative powers, but it cannot be denied that we want also to display our efforts to others. …
Film, Form and Function
February 3, 2013
Are there any classic movies you’re ashamed to say you’ve never seen? I rectified my biggest omission last week when I watched Citizen Kane, which many take to be the greatest film of all. At a movie industry dinner some months ago I found I was not the only one around the table for whom …
Soft or Hard?
January 20, 2013
We sometimes speak of the hard sciences, meaning physics, chemistry, mathematics and anything for which there are clear, determinate answers to be found. The hard/soft distinction can be found even in the arts. In philosophy we often distinguish between the hard end, of logic, metaphysics and epistemology, and the softer end of ethics, aesthetics and …
Appearance and Reality
October 28, 2012
I realise that my life is full of contradictions. I’m shy yet I enjoy attention; high-intellect attracts me yet I’m also fond of comic books; I love to visit my roots yet I’m mostly found hidden away in the world of academe. Added to that is the struggle in which I’m perpetually caught between appearance and …
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