Mark de Silva Discusses "The Logos"

In this episode of The Big Book Project, Lori sits down with novelist and philosopher Mark de Silva to explore his monumental 2022 novel The Logos — a thousand-page meditation on art, perception, capitalism, and the visual texture of contemporary life.A writer steeped in philosophy and the visual arts, Mark reveals how The Logos emerged from nearly a decade of research into advertising theory, image culture, and the psychological forces that shape our desires. Lori and Mark’s conversation ranges from the phenomenology of seeing, to the dark glamour of New York City, drawing versus painting, and the strange seductions of stealth marketing.Together, Lori and Mark dive deep into:The narrator’s crisis of art and identity — and how success in the gallery world becomes a trapDrawing vs. painting as competing ways of capturing truthThe philosophy of visual perception and why looking too closely can dissolve the worldAdvertising as the new public art, and the blurred lines between art, manipulation, and influenceDaphne and Duke, the quasi-celebrities at the center of a massive, ambiguous ad campaignNew York City as a psychological landscape — its light, darkness, and peripheriesEmotional stuntedness, knowledge as alienation, and the costs of obsessive perceptionThe Logos as a portrait of contemporary capitalist culture — the beauty and the rotMark’s new work-in-progress: a sweeping novel about psychiatry, objectivity, homelessness, and agricultural labor in CaliforniaMark also recommends some of the big books currently on his mind, including:Hermann Broch — The Sleepwalkers and The Death of VirgilSolvej Balle -- On the Calculation of Volume seriesThis is a rich, layered conversation about what it means to see, what it means to make art, and what it means to capture the truth of a world defined by images.CHAPTERS00:00 — The twin crises at the heart of The Logos00:40 — Introducing Mark de Silva02:00 — Nine years of research and writing04:20 — An artist losing faith in the art world06:15 — Advertising as the new public art08:10 — Portraiture, obsession, and the essence of a person10:00 — Seeing too closely and dissolving boundaries12:00 — Drawing vs. painting: form vs. sensory seduction15:15 — The sensory trap of consumer culture17:30 — Ubiquity vs. usefulness in advertising theory20:00 — Stealth campaigns, non-celebrities, and identity23:00 — Art or capital? Garrett’s mysterious motives25:30 — The darkness underneath Daphne and Duke29:00 — New York City as a living organism33:00 — Emotional stuntedness and the alienation of knowledge37:00 — Writing through the eye — the book’s visual intensity40:45 — Art after capitalism: what still matters?45:00 — Is commercial art “real art”?47:20 — Mark’s next novel: psychiatry, mind, and California51:00 — Big book recommendations55:00 — Closing reflections