Today, ‘perfection’ in the arts is not only often seen as attainable but as something to expect and strive towards. In an age of auto-tune and Photoshop, where does the value in imperfection lie across the arts?

 

Musicians, artists and academics will come together on the 6th and 7th of October to present the ‘Aesthetics of Imperfection’ workshops; a collection of short talks and performances that address the philosophical debates between improvisation and composition, process and product and spontaneity and structure.

 

Why does it matter whether an improvisation is genuinely spontaneous, or has in fact been rehearsed to evince an ‘improvised feel’? Andy Hamilton, initiator of the workshops, continues to be fascinated by this question as it acts as an umbrella issue for key concerns such as the idea of mistakes and risk taking during performance.

 

Kindly funded by Durham University, the two-day event intends to rectify the idea that “a lot of philosophical aesthetics is a little removed from artistic practice,” states Andy.

 

Both workshops will take place in Newcastle; at The Black Swan on the 6th, and resumed at the Literary and Philosophical Society on the 7th.

 

Further details of location and order of events can be found here.