The thesis of this paper is that Plato’s Apology has an internally structured dialogue which may be read aporetically and may be used to read its monologic external structure as a dialogue proper. The aporia of the Apology has to do with the notion of ‘justice’ (dikē). Drawing from Hesiod’s observations as to the ambiguity of the term ‘justice,’ I argue that the same type of ambiguity is implicitly exploited by Socrates in the Apology. It is traditionally the case in (...) Plato’s aporetic dialogues that Socrates’ interlocutor(s) are the ones reduced to a state of aporia. I argue that under this reading, the jury plays a dual function, acting both as Socrates’ audience and interlocutor, and that they find themselves at an impasse (aporia) as to what justice is and whether they have acted justly. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the Portraits Not Made (1970) by Robert Filliou, a French artist of the postwar neo-avant-garde and a founding member of the international transdisciplinary art movement Fluxus. Interrogating originality and authorship, these ‘Intermedia’ works ‘depict’ artists: George Brecht, Dieter Rot, Dorothy Iannone, Irmeline Lebeer, Josef Beuys, Andy Warhol, John Cage, Arman, and Toi (you). Though virtually blank, they translate between binaries: visual/textual, material/immaterial, made/not made, artist/viewer. Inherently performative, Filliou’s portraits draw the viewer into a ‘poetic (...) economy’ based on three systems: Permanent Creation, the Eternal Network, and the Principle of Equivalence (well made, badly made, not made). Drawing on economic theory shaped by Fluxian absurdity and a Zen-like understanding of reality as at once empty and full, Filliou’s works undermine hierarchies – artistic and political – that privilege individual genius and art as capital exchange. His works propose alternative systems of value by acknowledging the viewer as co-creator. (shrink)