ART (Aesthetics Research Torino) Philosophical Seminar 

Pol Capdevila Castells

(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona)

June, 15. h 4 pm

 

 

 

Palazzo Nuovo, Aula 10

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Online

https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=m692f6c0828d02a82bef612ebbda96a67

 

The complex experience of time in cinema through mood

 

In this paper I discuss a number of audiovisual works that set out to construct a new form of time marked by a growing complexity. I argue that this form of temporality is intended to counter the dominant notion that the time we live in is fragmented, dismembered, “out of joint”. In the first, shorter part of the paper I discuss the current social, postmodern, context, in which human temporal experience is fragmented in different planes and dimensions. In the second part I analyze three audiovisual works and show how they offer answers to the problems described in the first part. Many artists show an interest in a reconfiguration of times without sacrificing any of the complexity that human experience can achieve. The works I analyze are Nostalgia de la luz (Patricio Guzmán, 2010), El cielo gira (Mercedes Álvarez, 2004), and Cemetery (Carlos Casas, 2019). The last two of these works build an atmosphere and a rhythm, using a variety of aesthetic resources which, in combination, create and convey an atmosphere or mood throughout the film. In a new reading of Augustine’s Confessions, where the philosopher argues his theory of time, I will defend that the mood is the aesthetic element that brings the unification of the plurality, that allows the beholder having a temporal unified experience of time of each of these works. Among other conclusions, we will see that, countering the tendency towards a uniform, simplified experience of reality, these artistic forms seek to recover the complexity of human experience and offer meanings, including potential future meanings, that allow us to reflect on the world we live in.

Pol Capdevila Castells is senior lecturer at the Humanities Department at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), where he teaches Contemporary Art. He also teaches Image Theory (B.A.) at the Communication Dept. at the same university. He is also currently teaching at the Research in Arts and Design M.A. (Eina) and at the M.A. in Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Thought (UPF). He obtained a B.A. in Philosophy and a Ph.D. in Aesthetics and Art Theory (both at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). He held a position as a predoctoral research fellow at Potsdam University, Berlin (with a “la Caixa” award in 2003 and a DAAD fellowship in 2004) and postdoctoral fellowships at Potsdam University and at Cambridge University (UK) with a Beatriu de Pinós program. His research interests revolve around aesthetic experience, hermeneutics and theory of reception, and manifestations of temporality in contemporary art and culture.

 

Coordinator:

Prof. Alessandro Bertinetto (University of Turin). 

 

 

Members:

Prof. Federico Vercellone (University of Turin).

Prof. Carlo Serra (University of Turin/ University of Calabria)

Prof.ssa Serena Feloj (University of Pavia)

Dr. Alberto Martinengo (University of Turin)

Dr. Paolo Furia (University of Turin)

Dr. Lisa Giombini (University Rome 3)

Dr. Gregorio Tenti (University of Turin)

Dr. Amalia Salvestrini (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi FIlosofici, Naples)

Dr. Francesca Monateri (Pisa, Scuola Normale)

Dr. Francesca Perotto (FINO)

Dr. Ivan Quartesan (FINO)

Dr. Sofia Boz (University of Padova)

Dr. Leonardo Pietropaolo (University of Turin)

Dr. Luisa Sampugnaro (University of Turin)

Dr. Nicola Davide Angerame (Turin)

 

ART addresses different topics of the contemporary debate in Aesthetics: philosophy of beauty, philosophy of the arts, theory of sensory experience, philosophy of image and imagination, and history of aesthetics.

 

ART is supported by:

Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca sulla Morfologia Francesco Moiso (CIM)
Centro Studi Arti della Modernità

Centro Studi Filosofico-religiosi "Luigi Pareyson"

ART is sponsored by: 

Italian Society for Aesthetics (SIE) 
European Society for Aesthetics (ESA)

 

The event is part of the project on "Aesthetic Practices" sponsored by SIE | Società Italiana di Estetica.