Invisible Philosophy

Invisible Philosophy

by Baltensperger + Siepert
In society, whose thoughts and visions do we hear? Among all those voices struggling to be heard, whose will reach our ears? And from those, which can have an impact on that society? Is the origination of philosophy—the formation of thoughts about life and society—related to educational knowledge, as well as to the amount of time available to develop it?

Invisible Philosophy liberates and unfolds the unused and ignored intellectual potential in our society. The project gives a voice to those who usually are reduced to their capabilities for physical labor. Every day for a month, artist duo Baltensperger + Siepert hired a day laborer to work for one day in their Beijing studio—not at the job they usually would do, but at intellectual labor. For one day they were employed as philosophers. Instead of working on somebody else’s vision, they were confronted with their own thoughts, visions, utopias, and their personal philosophy of life.

Fifteen of those philosophical writings are published in this book. They offer a multitude of ways to see the world and its cultural interpretations. These philosophical texts are written by Beijing’s day laborers, but they also examine on the global phenomenon of people migrating to the metropolises in efforts to support themselves and their families and to establish a better future.

Aside from the philosophical writings, this book also includes relevant, contextualizing texts by Jörg Huber, Matthias Messmer, Xu Wenwen, Dorothee Richter, and Baltensperger + Siepert. Baltensperger + Siepert

Baltensperger + Siepert explore essential themes of our time. They question the dispositives of perception by shedding light on them from alternative angles, thus allowing for different approaches to observation.

Amsel Verlag Zürich, Paperback, english - chinese, 316 pages