talkPOPc's Podcast
talkPOPc (Philosophers' Ontological Party club), is public philosophy + cognitively-engaged art nonprofit founded by Dr. Dena Shottenkirk, who is both a philosopher and an artist. As a topic-based project (we are now on our fourth) talkPOPc sponsors one-to-one conversations between a participant and a philosopher (who always dons our amazing gold African king hat, along with our mascot Puppet!) These conversations are consensus-building conversations and feed back into Shottenkirk's related artworks and published philosophy. The conversations become collaborative acts of making both philosophy and art. Thus, each topic - #1. nominalism, #2. censorship, #3. art as cognition, and #4 power - has three "pillars" the associated artworks, the published philosophy book, and podcast conversations. Various philosophers participate (see our website talkpopc.org for the list of philosophers) and these conversations happen in various places. For example, we go into bars and have one-to-one conversations. We sit down next to the deli counter and hold a conversation with someone who has walked in to get a ham sandwich and walked out knowing so much more about their own thoughts. We go into the MDC prison in Brooklyn and have conversations. We set up in galleries where the artworks and the philosophy are also displayed. And we listen. Here are some of those conversations.
Change happens when people talk.
talkPOPc's Podcast
Episode 41: Ali Beiruti: Boxing as Art, Art as Love
Ali, who is an amateur boxer, and a recent college graduate who wants to go into nursing, thinks of boxing as an art form. When Resident Philosopher Carolina Flores asks him why he thinks boxing is art, he says because "you can fall in love with it". And it must involve a practice. It is a skill-based practice. Cooking, video-games, etc., are all art forms. RP points out that his notion means that art is everywhere, and he says "yes, anything can be art." So she asks if cleaning the house can be an art, and he says, "yes, if you're really passionate about it". She asks about creativity and how is it involved in boxing. He answers that it is in the person you're fighting - "someone who is slick and they know how to maneuver their head", you got to know your response. "You have to be creative in that situation...There is creativity in everything you do." RP Flores sums up Ali's point of view: Any activity can be an art, and it becomes an art because of the attitude you are in..it has to be done out of love." Ali agrees completely, and says that if you don't love it anymore you will loose your ambition. And then you loose the art.