Zoltan Deme
Encyclopedia
Zoltan Deme, also known as Zoltán Deme or Zoltan Demme (May 31, 1949), American philosopher
, philosophical anthropologist, aesthete, writer, composer, movie director, actor.
Designation of the humanization as prime principle when uniting varied ontological, gnoseological, epistemological, and other aspects of philosophy, locates his system close to the philosophical anthropology
.
First, he is equally active in the field of the aesthetics
(e.g. resolving some acut problems of the perception of the minimal art poetry) in the field of the art history
(e.g. revealing some secrets of Piet Mondrian) in the field of the ethnography
(e.g. presenting in each article more than specific ethnographic details: odd behavior and strange way of thinking of people of micro-civilizations) and in the field of the travel writing
(e.g. the diary of his hichhiking is a continuation of the beatnik and hippie literature led by Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Corso). Besides, he conducts and writes performance plays, and sometimes he makes even some movie acting.
Second, he believes that the theoretical and artistic creations always must be accompanied with everyday practical efforts. Therefore, he has organized and managed international service groups acting in varied social and economic areas, struggling mainly with world problems (e.g. starvation, abuse of poor people, mass manipulation, and so on) and having the longer or shorter time collaboration of Friedrich Dürrenmatt
, Norman Mailer
, Willy Brandt
, Andrew Lloyd Webber
, Yehudi Menuhin
, Audrey Hepburn
and others.
Third, he prefers interactivity and common work. As degreed filmdirector (and former filmdirector of the Hungarian State Television) he stores his completed feature films in his website in divX format for years (having Lucille Bliss
, Jennifer Darling
, Andre Landzaat
, Walker Edmiston
, and others appeared in the movies) and discusses the final development of these films with fans and experts before making release (The Beyond, Promised Land). Same thing he does with his operas, with his ballets, and other music compositions (Torquemada, Barabbas).
However, these rainbow scale activities always contain one principal path. It is his perpetual monitoring the tragic features of the human status. Monitoring the death, the passage of time, the lifetime bondage to the same body and soul, and many other restrictive peculiarities of our status. As Zoltan Deme thinks, the true humanists have to front these fatal factors, have to search for methods to cease them or have to reduce their presence and influence. Similarly, humanists have to front those restrictive elements of our status also, what we people create in our societies. He does these things decades long, and as a synthesis of his all philosophical, artistic, and practical activities, at the end point of his path many well elaborated new world models appear (Promotion One, Promotion Two).
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, philosophical anthropologist, aesthete, writer, composer, movie director, actor.
His philosophy
Native Hungarian Zoltan Deme, in 1984, presented a new approach to the general philosophical problems and created a quite new philosophical system. After his immigration to the United States, his book (Struggling against the Absurdity of Human Existence) was translated to the major languages and sold out world-wide. Applying his thorough knowledge in the fields of the history of both Eastern and Western theoretical thinking, in this book he turned the traditional basic oppositions of philosophy (matter vs. spirit, materialism vs. idealism, possibility of knowledge vs. impossibility of knowledge, and so on) to one ultimate opposition (possibility of humanization of the world vs. impossibility of humanization of the world).Designation of the humanization as prime principle when uniting varied ontological, gnoseological, epistemological, and other aspects of philosophy, locates his system close to the philosophical anthropology
Philosophical anthropology
Philosophical anthropology is a discipline dealing with questions of metaphysics and phenomenology of the human person, and interpersonal relationships. It is the attempt to unify disparate ways of understanding behaviour of humans as both creatures of their social environments and creators of...
.
His other activities
For centuries, philosophy was a synthesizer of other sciences and philosophers were polyhistors. Zoltan Deme keeps this tradition.First, he is equally active in the field of the aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
(e.g. resolving some acut problems of the perception of the minimal art poetry) in the field of the art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
(e.g. revealing some secrets of Piet Mondrian) in the field of the ethnography
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
(e.g. presenting in each article more than specific ethnographic details: odd behavior and strange way of thinking of people of micro-civilizations) and in the field of the travel writing
Travel writing
Travel writing is a genre that has, as its focus, accounts of real or imaginary places. The genre encompasses a number of styles that may range from the documentary to the evocative, from literary to journalistic, and from the humorous to the serious....
(e.g. the diary of his hichhiking is a continuation of the beatnik and hippie literature led by Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Corso). Besides, he conducts and writes performance plays, and sometimes he makes even some movie acting.
Second, he believes that the theoretical and artistic creations always must be accompanied with everyday practical efforts. Therefore, he has organized and managed international service groups acting in varied social and economic areas, struggling mainly with world problems (e.g. starvation, abuse of poor people, mass manipulation, and so on) and having the longer or shorter time collaboration of Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire...
, Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
, Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm , was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany 1964–1987....
, Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
, Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
, Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
and others.
Third, he prefers interactivity and common work. As degreed filmdirector (and former filmdirector of the Hungarian State Television) he stores his completed feature films in his website in divX format for years (having Lucille Bliss
Lucille Bliss
Lucille Bliss is an American actress and voice artist. A New York City native, she has appeared in films and on television shows, including The Smurfs as Smurfette, Nickelodeon's Invader ZIM and Walt Disney's Cinderella...
, Jennifer Darling
Jennifer Darling
Jennifer Darling is an American actress and voice actress. While her body of work as a voiceover artist greatly eclipses that of her on-stage career, she is, perhaps, nevertheless known best to most people as Peggy Callahan, the secretary to Oscar Goldman in the television series The Six Million...
, Andre Landzaat
Andre Landzaat
André Landzaat is a Dutch actor. He played Tony Cassadine in the soap opera General Hospital in 1981; for this, he won a Soap Opera Award. He used the popularity of the show to travel the United States to bring attention to the problem of missing children.Landzaat was born and raised in the...
, Walker Edmiston
Walker Edmiston
-Career:Walker Edmiston was an American character actor and voice-over artist who was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Edmiston appeared on various television programs in character roles during the 1950s – 1970s, such as Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, Knots Landing, and The Dukes of Hazzard, all...
, and others appeared in the movies) and discusses the final development of these films with fans and experts before making release (The Beyond, Promised Land). Same thing he does with his operas, with his ballets, and other music compositions (Torquemada, Barabbas).
However, these rainbow scale activities always contain one principal path. It is his perpetual monitoring the tragic features of the human status. Monitoring the death, the passage of time, the lifetime bondage to the same body and soul, and many other restrictive peculiarities of our status. As Zoltan Deme thinks, the true humanists have to front these fatal factors, have to search for methods to cease them or have to reduce their presence and influence. Similarly, humanists have to front those restrictive elements of our status also, what we people create in our societies. He does these things decades long, and as a synthesis of his all philosophical, artistic, and practical activities, at the end point of his path many well elaborated new world models appear (Promotion One, Promotion Two).
Philosophy
- Selected Essays and Studies (Chords of Scales), 1995. OCLC 54373620
- Struggling against the Absurdity of Human Existence, 1988. OCLC 440610617
- Lutte contre l'absurdité de l'existence humaine, 1989. OCLC 22508818 (French).
- Bor'ba s absurdnost'i'u' chelovecheskogo sushchestvovanii'a, 1989. OCLC 220878600 (Russian).
- Szemben az abszurditással, In: Arpeggio, 1984. p. 112. OCLC 32631587 (Hungarian).
- Programme One (Starvation, exploitation, terrorism, manipulations, etc.), 2002. OCLC 56592831
- Programme Two (Morality, beauty, erudition, charity, memory, etc.), 2002. OCLC 56592831
- Promotion One (Changing the living world, changing the non-living world), 2009. ISBN 978 963886091 0
- Promotion Two (The factors of changing the living and non-living world), 2009. ISBN 978 963886092 7
Other
- Selected Performances and Shows (Three Dramas), 1989. OCLC 469312987
- Zigzag Rushing around the Globe, 1995. ISBN 963 550069 6
- Avtostoppom po Amerike, 1991. OCLC 220878600 (Russian).
- Decrescendo, 2009. ISBN 978 963886090 3 (Hungarian)
Philosophical stories
- Beyond (The Essence of the Universe), feature film, based on the stories of E.T.A. HoffmannE.T.A. HoffmannErnst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann , better known by his pen name E.T.A. Hoffmann , was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist...
and Théophile GautierThéophile GautierPierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
. - Land (Consequences of Gene Manipulations), feature film, based on Oidipus in Colonus, a play by SophoclesSophoclesSophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
: - http://www.zoltandemmeworks.net/page4temp4.htmlCryptograms (New World Plans), feature film, based on the last play of William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
: The TempestThe TempestThe Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
. - http://www.zoltandemmeworks.net/page4temp4.htmlPrometheus (Beyond the Human Senses), short film, based on Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus.
- Plus (Social Activities), short film.
Others
- http://www.zoltandemmeworks.net/page4temp4.htmlGiselle (based on the story of Théophile GautierThéophile GautierPierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
). - http://www.zoltandemmeworks.net/page4temp4.htmlNutcracker (based on the story of E.T.A. HoffmannE.T.A. HoffmannErnst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann , better known by his pen name E.T.A. Hoffmann , was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist...
).
Operas and ballets about world problems
- Torquemada Opera in 3 acts. Story by Victor HugoVictor HugoVictor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
. - Malaqi Buddha Opera in 3 acts. Story follows Kipling's novels.
- Mona Lisa Opera in 2 acts. Story by Zoltan Deme.
- Barabbas Ballet in 2 acts. Story by Zoltan Deme.
- http://www.zoltandemmeworks.net/midi.htmlnCaravaggina Ballet in 2 acts. Story follows Poe's novels.
Others
- Romeo and Juliet Opera in 3 acts. Story by William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
. - Ghillie Dhu (Tom Thumb) Ballet in 2 acts. Story follows the Brothers GrimmBrothers GrimmThe Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
's tales. - Ugly Duckling Ballet in 2 acts. Story follows Hans Christian AndersenHans Christian AndersenHans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
's tale. - New Nutcracker Ballet in 2 acts. Story follows E.T.A. HoffmannE.T.A. HoffmannErnst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann , better known by his pen name E.T.A. Hoffmann , was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist...
's novels.
His plays
- Ego (One-person show) 2 acts.
- Juan!... Juaaan!!!... (Two-persons show) 2 acts.
- sfgahjkkklg qtkjfdkjj (Dark comedy) 2 acts.
- Tyranny (Dark comedy) 2 acts.