I have a great curiosity about the world around me, so the choice of my texts is as broad in themes and topics as my interests.  The glue between my broad interests is philosophy. The main focus in my work has become: questioning how the world appears to us, why structures are the way they are, and looking for alternative possibilities and counterexamples. The texts may seem distant in terms of in topics, but they revolve around questioning and reflecting on the experience and structures of the world around us.

‘Moving Through Time’ by Ed McKeon

Time is something that quickly eludes us. I am interested in the subjective experience of time and its measurability, two things that seem to be at odds. What is true time? How do we balance the time of Kairos (lived time) and Chronos (clock time)? This article by Ed McKeon titled ‘Moving Through Time’ is about extreme slow walking. It makes you dwell on time, or rather, teaching you to reflect on the experience of time. While not referenced directly, I recognise the work of Hannah Arendt and Henri Bergson on creativity and time experience running through the piece. I would love to learn Tai Chi—maybe extreme slow walking is a good start.  

‘Why So Serious?’ by Eef Veldkamp

I’ll be honest. This piece, ‘Why So Serious?’ by Eef Veldkamp, is not the most accessible because there is quite a lot of theoretical background. For that reason, I also cannot say I fully agree with everything written, but I support the article because I agree with one of its central tenets: ‘I believe the crux to the unpopularity of humour as a device in engaged practices is the social condition of not being taken seriously.’ 

In my experience, there is—writing from the recipient's perspective—no better way to get someone to reflect on ethical beliefs than through humour. There is also, in my opinion, nothing more difficult than incorporating humor into your work in an apt way. Humour is a profound manifestation of intelligence. The artist who dares to expose themselves and the work to humour takes a bold risk, which I admire and can greatly appreciate. It is a thought-through article, which discusses (engagement of and in) art on many levels.  

‘Sensing Matters’ by Karla Paredes de Krentel

‘Knowledge’ is something that we take for granted. We rarely reflect on what it means to ‘know’ something. But what is knowledge? Where does it come from? What layers is it composed of? As someone who works a lot from rational thought, it is vital to occasionally reflect on what experiences—and therefore, knowledge—the senses bring with them. My education also lacks non-Western views on acquiring knowledge. So, I admire and learn from artists who have made sensory perception (part of) their practice, such as Karla Paredes de Krentel.

She explores how rational thought is connected to sensory perception and knowledge production. Indeed, it is not science (alone) that should be asking and answering the metaphysical question of ‘how we are in the world.’  

‘What If Our Clothes Were Alive and Photosynthesized?’ by Roya Aghighi

Tying in with the previous article on sensory perception, I would like to suggest this article by Roya Aghighi called ‘What If Our Clothes Were Alive and Photosynthesized?’ It asks the question, ‘What if?’, which is one of my favourite questions. It means that an alternative to the status quo is brewing and implies that the established frameworks will be questioned.

I worked in fashion for years and left the industry partly because boxes and boxes of new clothes came in every two months. Why? What can you need in terms of clothing as a human being? The difference designers and artists can make is not just asking the question but leading the investigation into new possible futures. What I think is hugely important is that designers determine the future because they can direct—maybe even determine—human behaviour with the design they put out into the world. 

Bio

Sabine Winters is a freelance philosopher (of science). Sabine holds a B.A. in philosophy with a specialisation in the philosophy of science. Sabine is interested in the process of idea development and the ‘how and why’ behind a theory or process. She is the founder of Future Based, an interdisciplinary philosophy platform that hosts meetups and reading sessions and publishes podcasts and articles. Sabine works as a philosophy teacher at ArtEZ Product Design. She also lectures in the fields of film and philosophy, philosophy and technology, and future thinking. She creates interdisciplinary programmes in which science, art and technology meet, and gives workshops on the (role of the) imagination in science. Sabine's (ongoing) research is on the Scientific Imagination—the role and function of imagination in the (natural) sciences.