talkPOPc
Building Thought Through Conversations

Cognitively-Engaged Art & Public Philosophy

The talkPOPc Process

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

talkPOPc is an investigation into systems. And the role of conversation in those systems.

talkPOPc is a logical continuation of my work as both a philosopher and an artist, with the latter consistently focused on philosophical investigation. Regarding my work as an artist: I use only one image, Giotto’s The Marriage, painting it each time in different, edited ways. It is an articulation of the fact that the world consists of but few constituent parts; it is in the mathematical recombination of those that we get complexity. Regarding my work as a philosopher: I write about perception both in terms in visual science and in terms of the epistemic and social aspects of art. Similarly to my practice as an artist, the philosophy emphasizes that every visual (and gist) experience and every thought has many, many perspectives (many frameworks) that could be chosen, and while we choose some, many avenues are also edited out. Using the one image is also a way of investigating that fact.

A related philosophical point: Each of the artworks that I do is pointing to the whole thing; all are simply views of the same thing seen from different angles. It is an investigation into systems of belief, into the logical and historical system of artmaking.

A side point: The logical and historical system of artmaking is at a pivot point, and has been for several decades. While there is general agreement that art is epistemological and not meant to fulfill the wayward metaphysical notion of “Beauty”, there is less agreement on the way forward. We at talkPOPc (and there are many of us!) believe the solution to the stalemate is a focus on the consensus-building function of conversation. Compelled by fully divorcing art from the modernist dependence on stylistic maneuvers, conversation will allow us to move to the next logical and historical juncture, thereby granting us the freedom to focus instead on reference (to the world), thus embracing the formation of implicit belief systems.

talkPOPc does this: The additive modalities of 1) visual conversation and 2) philosophical text combine naturally with the performative aspect of 3) one-to-one conversations. And of course, our mascot puppet, Popsey, representative of all our Resident Philosophers is essential, too! These modalities are applied to the (nested) investigation of a particular philosophical topic e.g., Nominalism, Censorship, Art as Cognition, or Power. This is reference to the world. And of course, meaning and reference are linked.

As a legal nonprofit, we hold public, in-person one-to-one conversations between a participant and a philosopher (MC’d by Popsey!) along with the exhibited artworks and their related philosophical texts, which then opens up this topic to others. The generating consensus, with an emphasis on listening, is the culmination of the investigative urge. Quotes from the conversations get shifted back into the artworks, a device that allows viewers to delve and pry for themselves, revealing the social nature of investigation, transcendence, and belief.

“I am Dr. Shottenkirk and I am the founder of talkPOPc: The Philosopher’s Ontological Party Club. talkPOPc is about encounters and about how we, together, build thought. I have my thoughts, in philosophy and in art, but that’s only the beginning. talkPOPc is about leaving the swirling motion of the city aside and engaging in meaningful conversations. For both art and philosophy are just conversation. But it is more than that— it is about all that lies within conversations: listening. thinking. speaking. For there is no thinking without speaking, no speaking without listening and no listening without thinking You have to listen to others, so we at talkPOPc go out into the world and ask: “So, what do YOU think?” Once a month, sometimes in a deli, or a park, or bar, or a bodega, I, or another philosopher has a one-to-one conversation with you. That way, the city speaks to the city, the city listens to the city. The city thinks. You think. For yourself. But not alone.”

CONVERSATION builds thought.

 

The Process

 
Giotto Scrovegni, The Virgin’s Wedding Procession

Giotto Scrovegni, The Virgin’s Wedding Procession

1. It begins with my own thoughts on the subject. I begin the conversation through my own investigation into a topic. I do this both in a verbal version and a visual version. The verbal part is philosophy publications, primarily in book form. The visual is in paintings. So, I write books and make paintings; the paintings I call “ConverseThoughts” as they integrate both thoughts from the books and from the public philosophy conversations.

talkPOPc is a topic-driven project. We have completed two topics – Nominalism and Censorship – and are now on our third: Art as Cognition (forthcoming book from Springer Nature, 2021). The books inform the artworks and the artworks inform the books.

2. Collective Thought. The second move is the public philosophy/socially engaged art crux of talkPOPc: we go out into the world and we ask others: what do you think about this? We hold one-to-one conversations between a philosopher and a participant, and in this setting people say amazing things. All different views, all different versions of the same topic. One topic, different views joining as a single collective force.

This is because what each of us thinks is the result of the influence of others. And when we say something in art or in writing we are, in turn, affecting others. We are building thought. It is social epistemology: how we, as a group, know reality.

———

The Underlying Principle: Unity. I begin my own investigation with that same truth: the unity and singularity of the world. It is the metaphysical position of neutral monism. In this, we are all referring to the same one world, and together, we build our epistemological awareness of it.

One image. Similarly, I use just one image. For over twenty-five years, I have used just one image. I have painted, over and over, the same image: Giotto’s The Virgin’s Wedding Procession. Using a reproduction from an old book I found when I was getting my MFA at Rutgers (a faculty of Fluxus artists and my mentor, Leon Golub), the image serves as a kind of mathematical variable for all images. 

One World. 
One Image. 

Therefore, the painting aspect of the project is not about the image. In this way it is different from other artists' works. It is not about painting a subject – there is no representational content in the way that visual art has always had content. The image is a given and as such is unimportant. Instead, what the practice is doing is showing the process of translating and symbol formation. It is looking at looking, looking at how knowledge is gained through looking. Many versions, one constructed system of thought.

“ConverseThoughts”. The artworks are called ConverseThoughts, and in them are both my thoughts (from published works) and, in the latest topic ‘Art as Cognition”, the participants’ thoughts, seen in pieces of paper (like Chinese fortune cookies!) that are rolled up and placed inside a box or the talkPOPc philosopher’s African gold hat, forming a diptych with the painting. Those containers hold the thoughts of many people. The rolled bits of paper can be picked up by the viewer, unrolled and read. They are immaterial thoughts transposed into material artworks.

It is Art as Philosophy. Philosophy as Art.

— Dena Shottenkirk

For more information visit denashottenkirk.org