The spider brings forth its own web. This image from the Upanishad invites deep meditation on how nature brings out a thread that it forms into a complex symmetry. Looking at the spider, the thread, and the web-its function and the source of the complex pattern-we have an image that invites deep speculation about mantra, [...]
Who is seeing when seeing
Auro Art World organized a series of 6 lectures at the Centre d'Art multimedia room in Auroville. These lectures, conducted by Dr. Christoph Kluetsch, explore connections between art, philosophy, and spirituality, bridging Eastern and Western traditions to illuminate the enduring questions of existence, consciousness, and creativity. The series is offered on the first Tuesday of every month. Fourth lecture - Tuesday 7th January [...]
Retinal Art and the Ruins of Representation
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 [...]
2nd lecture: Irumbai Temple as Yantram (Apparata)
During the Chola Empire, the layout of Shiva temples was formalized to a great degree. Based on the Agamas and Shastras, the temple was fully developed into a place in space, time, and consciousness where the microcosm and macrocosm mirror each other. When a temple is built, a site will be chosen, and it has [...]
1st lecture: Apples and Mangoes
The snake in paradise seduced Eve to eat a fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge that holds the distinction between good and evil. Why was the tree of knowledge a forbidden tree? Why did the snake seduce Eve? What did the fruit taste like? When I asked myself why I want to talk about [...]
Play and Blunder
Spiel - misstep In the West, I used to think that playing had to do with games and games had to do with rules. To play a game is to enter a space that is constrained by rules, and the player can develop strategies within those parameters to act according to the rules, with the goal of [...]
Understand
What does it mean to understand another person? It's easy to understand a counterpart when you agree, because then you simply agree with yourself, perhaps even enjoy seeing your own thinking reflected in the other, enriched by a slightly different perspective, more colorful, more lively, more energetic, because both are happy to have found someone [...].
Full moon
Et is full moon in India. Time for self-reflection, meditation and inner reflection. I have never really thought about death. It has always been a boundary for me, the thing that defines our existence in a negative way. Finitude throws us back on ourselves, or so I thought. I somewhat agreed with Heidegger here. Something [...]