cosmethics

“cosmetics” often has a pejorative ring to it: the merely superficial, keeping up appearances, the gloss or patina that covers up underlying, structural problems. false appearance, with or without deceptive intent. this goes back to the socratic dialogue gorgias, written down by plato, where socrates rejects rhetorics as cosmetics, which is to say, as mere flattery, as surface adornment, condescendingly comparing it to a baker trying to make his bread look more palatable. (the elitism of thinkers dealing with abstract and supposedly higher truths vis-à-vis workers and craftspeople, who deal with the material world, is already well in place here.) but what would it mean to think of cosm-ethics? an ethics based on the creation of beauty and order in our physical surroundings, comparable to the beauty of the cosmic system? what would such a cosmethics imply for how we live, how we relate to those in our proximity, how we see the world…?

shopping

Posted on 15/01/2012 by marc

name: maría / age: 43 / profession: artist, researcher & teacher / weekday: tuesday / reference: still from ‘tiempo real’ (2003) by maría ruido, 43 min.

feminism

Posted on 27/02/2012 by marc

name: cocco / age: 34 / profession: fashion designer / location: Paris / weekday: sunday / reference: doing her thing

la culture

Posted on 16/01/2012 by marc

name: maría / age: 43 / profession: artist, researcher, teacher / location: barcelona / weekday: sunday / reference: still from ‘tiempo real’ (2003) by maría ruido, 43 min.

the cleaner u get the cleaner u get

Posted on 03/11/2011 by marc

name: Diet / age: 40 / profession: poet & journalist / location: utrecht / weekday: monday / reference: newspaper cutouts dagblad trouw

dictionnaray

Posted on 01/11/2011 by rogier

name: derveloy / age: 29 / profession: designer / location: arnhema / weekday: monday / reference: dictionnaray / dictionnaryday go, little booke, god send thee good passage, And specially let this be thy prayer, unto them all that thee will read or hear, where thou art wrong, after their help to call, thee to correct in any part or all. From our dear home dictionnary.

trotsky on art