First Encounters with Ragas As a teenager, I listened to ragas for hours. I knew nothing about them. I looked things up a bit: microtonality, meditation, melodic progression. I didn't understand anything else. But they were the deepest musical experiences – a meditation through music. To this day, ragas lead me inward or into deep states of realization, which are not rational, however. It's more of a way of being in the world. Music as a Shared Space and Pure Energy Listening to music draws…
Contemporary art is obsessed with the „next step.“ The avant-garde, the unprecedented, the new and unique. Yet, in the pursuit of the new, we lose sight of something essential: artistic practice itself. Artistic practice isn't just about pushing boundaries. It belongs to those who use art for self-exploration, spiritual practice, healing, therapy, or craft. But in today's culture, especially in the West, we act as if...
Form is emptiness. It has shape, but no substance; it is neither matter nor energy. Form is consciousness – to see something as something gives rise to form. Form is also functional: substance, matter, and energy interact according to laws. As part of consciousness, they interact in form. Form is emptiness. Form is consciousness. Consciousness interacts with consciousness. Matter arises from form – not the other way around. Matter does not give rise to form. The flow of energy and matter – from individual…
Art Before Theory (short summary) Christoph Kluetsch This lecture is the final one in my winter series. I have given six lectures so far, and I have been challenging myself throughout. Today, I am taking on my biggest challenge yet. I have been exploring topics that interest me—topics that represent a collision between Western art history, Indian spirituality, and postmodern thinking. I find this intersection to be a fascinating space to operate in. In my previous lectures, I have examined…
Retinal Art and the Ruins of Representation: Revisiting Plato’s Cave and the Notion of Rasa in the Natyashastra Christoph Kluetsch “Something in the world forces us to think. This something is not an object of recognition, but a fundamental encounter.” Gilles Deleuze – Difference and repetition p. 139 “Minds exist only in relation to other minds.” (Mihai Nadin) “even those elements designated as „basic“ or „proto-elements“ are not primitive but are, on the contrary, of a complex nature.” (Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art)
My morning meditation is becoming a bit of a routine, although one can hardly say that after only a handful of times. It's more of a stretch, a path, or an exploration. Like hiking in the mountains: with the summit in sight, hiking through the paths, along the ridges, through the valleys and rivers, past the rock faces, through scree and rocks, meadows and forests, and beyond the tree line on glaciers in the snow, the mountains become a metaphor for the inner search. The...
When I read a book, watch a movie, get lost in a painting, or participate in a performance, what exactly is happening? It’s as if I’m experiencing something, and images, feelings, and experiences are being awakened within me. Imagine a movie, a book, a play, or a painting that deals with human relationships, action, history, or fairy tales. So you sit somewhere and look at something that tells a kind of story. Now, what is the difference between…
(this is an old text of mine, found in the archives. It is strange to read it again, as it shows to me how desperately I tried to get out of the trap of representation and the urge to embrace a philosophy of immanence. I went through so many ideas, looked at so many artists – I never did anything with the text, as my self-critical voice didn’t consider it to be any good. I have to say I like...
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