The
concepts ‘beauty’ and ‘ugliness’ are abstract derivations by the mind
of a physical awareness that originates in the brain. An awareness of
something the brain inherited from biological evolution.
Our brain stores information and uses some of it to take its decisions concerning our integrity and survival. Along their societal evolutionary path humans became aware, in their minds, of a very little portion of this information. It made us aware of ourselves and of our near environment. This set in motion a process of knowledge formation that initiated the rise of societal evolution.
Art emerged as a tool of societal evolution to share knowledge with all and ensure societal reproduction. But by Late-Modernity art, in Western societies, had reached a stage of nothingness. In their search for sense some artists discovered that the fundamentals of the principle of life wash away the arbitrariness of ideologies... and organic art slowly emerged out of the nightmare of Late-Modernity.
Our brain stores information and uses some of it to take its decisions concerning our integrity and survival. Along their societal evolutionary path humans became aware, in their minds, of a very little portion of this information. It made us aware of ourselves and of our near environment. This set in motion a process of knowledge formation that initiated the rise of societal evolution.
Art emerged as a tool of societal evolution to share knowledge with all and ensure societal reproduction. But by Late-Modernity art, in Western societies, had reached a stage of nothingness. In their search for sense some artists discovered that the fundamentals of the principle of life wash away the arbitrariness of ideologies... and organic art slowly emerged out of the nightmare of Late-Modernity.
6.1. what is organic art ?
Before the spread of rationalism and materialism alchemists thought that the ‘organic' was the character of life and they viewed life as being powered by a ‘spiritual force’. Chemists later found out that carbon is present in the chemical process of all living things thus the designation ‘organic chemistry that further expanded to compounds that are not part of living organisms. So materialism and rationalism view life as a chemical process in which carbon plays a central role. In contrast for the common man the term ‘organic' nowadays simply means everything that relates to the principle of life.
The term organic as in ‘organic art borrowed its interpretation from the common man. Organic art is indeed the appellation designating visual signs that illustrate the principle of life in term of :
The term organic as in ‘organic art borrowed its interpretation from the common man. Organic art is indeed the appellation designating visual signs that illustrate the principle of life in term of :
- their form,
- their subject matter.
Form = ( beauty ↔ ugliness )
The human species emerged at the end of an evolutionary process that lasted nearly 4 billion years. So for 4 billion years life on earth accumulated the characteristics of this evolutionary process. After being repeated endlessly over such a long time-span these characteristics necessarily left traces that are inscribed as patterns in the record of the biological evolution of life. Evolution is like an infinitely long chain of mutations that replicated successfully. And every mutation that replicated successfully was in competition with a bunch of other candidates that failed and fell into oblivion. From this we know that the firmest patterns in the record, of the biological evolution of life, act like a register of :
- what works evolutionary wise,
- what does not work evolutionary wise.
The record of these patterns is imprinted in the biological code of the individuals of all species. Human individuals can’t read their biological code and are thus living in the ignorance of the evolutionary process that generated their species. But these patterns are nevertheless leaving an impression in the brain that seems to guide the intuition in the individual’s mind.
_________
Notes out of tune sound ‘wrong’ for most of us. We feel indeed like listening to a fuzzy ugliness when a musical note is badly out of tune. Neurologists inform us that the human brain is highly specialized for pattern recognition. Out of tune notes are perceived by the brain as being out of wack with their patterns and our mind then interprets this as something disturbing and ugly. This also explains that, when the ear transmits to the brain the information about a note that is tuned correctly according to its pattern, our mind is immediately submerged with a feeling of enjoyment and interprets it as being beautiful.
It’s as if the pattern of an out of tune note activated the neurological pathways triggering suffering while the patterns of a correctly tuned note activated the neurological pathways triggering happiness. What this implies more broadly is that ugliness causes suffering while beauty causes happiness. The same principle also applies to color arrangements and juxtaposition of forms. We feel happy when observing certain color and form combinations and unhappy when observing other combinations. Such feelings are automatic and the large majority of us can’t explain why it is so.
As a painter I approach forms and color arrangements by feeling if they work or don’t work. If I feel that they don’t work I correct them until I’m finally satisfied that they represent an optimum of truth. Yes that’s right. Truth is the word that best describes my feeling as a painter groping about in the dark for forms and color combinations that I subconsciously feel are working. The same kind of feeling is also known to mathematicians or physicists who say that they are sensing when a solution is right because they feel it is beautiful.
Generally speaking our innate automatism to recognize beauty comes into action when our conscious experience is matching our unconscious expectations. In other words when both, our conscious experience and our unconscious expectations, are in sync we are submerged by a feeling of pleasure and happiness which informs us that we have attained truth in the rendering form of a work. This feeling, of truth in form, is experienced by painters, sculptors, musicians, but also by masons, carpenters, gardeners, cooks, hair cutters, and more generally by all makers and doers who love what they are doing.
_________
As I stated here above “these patterns are nevertheless leaving an impression in the brain that seems to guide the intuition of the individual’s mind”. The patterns in the biological code, about formal characters that work evolutionary wise, leave a positive impression in the brain signaling something that is good while the patterns, about formal characters that do not work evolutionary wise, leave a negative impression in the brain signaling something that is bad. When I refer to ‘formal characters’ I’m thinking about lines, forms, colors, sounds, harmonics, rhythms, smells, and other characters of the human perception …
These impressions in the brain generate feelings in the mind :
- a positive biological impression in the brain, of something that is considered good in the record of our biology, registers as an awareness of pleasure and happiness in the mind. This awareness of pleasure was recorded early on in the process of societal evolution as a central trait of the tribal societal worldview1. Later under power societies this awareness of pleasure and happiness was given the appellation beauty. The word beauty was given the meaning of something that is attracting the mind because it evokes pleasant feelings.
- a negative biological impression in the brain, of something that is considered bad in the record of our biology, registers as an awareness of suffering and unhappiness in the mind. This awareness of suffering was recorded, before the process of societal evolution set in, by ‘small bands’ as being a malediction that knowledge could eventually help to cure. And this is how the process of knowledge formation was initiated that gradually ignited societal evolution2. Later under power societies this awareness of suffering and unhappiness was given the appellation ugliness. The word ugliness was given the meaning of something that repulses the mind because it evokes abhorrent feelings.
In other words the concepts ‘beauty’ and ‘ugliness’ are abstract derivations by the mind of a physical awareness that originates in the brain.
The principle of life is the conclusion of a long cycle of successful biological mutations that are recorded in the biological code of life and have been impressed in the brain. Life is the conclusion, or the apotheosis, of what worked evolutionary wise. It is the successful outcome of a near infinite chain of replicating mutations. And as is attested by sports humans are attracted by success because it is celebrated and rewarded. The reward of success, in replication of mutations, is the gift of life and the mind registers from the brain the exceptional character of life which it translates as being the apotheosis of beauty. Organic art is all about the illustration, in form and subject matter, of this apotheosis of beauty.
organic art as the flow, of what works, on the waves of time
We are generally focused on what happens in the here and now. As the Americans like to say that’s how we put food on the table. But such a short vision results in a break-down, in our minds, of the flow of life along the waves of time. The break-down of the flow of life separates us from what makes us who we are. It is also dumbing down the working of the minds, to the simple events and anecdotes as they occur in the present, which isolates us from the flow of life.
Our being here today, as an individual particle, of the human species has to be understood first and foremost as the conclusion of a near infinite process of successfully replicating biological mutations. Yes we are first and foremost a biological assembly of molecules whose interconnections are giving rise to the properties of our cells, their ability to grow, to maintain themselves and to divide.
Our biology originated our human framework and by the same token it initiated the following :
- most of the actions and behaviors, of all the individuals of a given species, are engaged by the brain that orders the nervous system to make the individual act in such a way as to possibly ensure his physical integrity and ultimately to ensure his survival.
- our brain stores information and uses some of it to take its decisions concerning our integrity and survival. Along their societal evolutionary path humans became aware, in their minds, of a very little portion of this information. It made us aware of ourselves and of our near environment. This early awareness also set in motion a process of knowledge formation that initiated the rise of the process of societal evolution which put our species on a faster track of evolution.
Societal evolution was initiated as a result of the initial process of knowledge formation while humans were still living in small bands3. This process of knowledge formation somehow gave rise to the “first societies” which, everywhere on earth, were seen to organize under a commonly shared tribal model of society that lasted many tens of thousands of years. Tribal societies were aware that life materializes in species and that species search to reproduce over the long haul. They also were aware that the human species was being interconnected with all other species and with all the other entities in their environment.
Such an awareness, of the fundamentals of the principle of life, gave rise to a search for knowledge in the following fields :
1. how does a living species ensure its reproduction over the long haul? This particular search resulted in a holistic model that finds its source in the dance between the species’ polarities:
- the individuals are the positive polarity that ensures change and also ensures the injection of more complexity in the system of life
- society is the negative polarity that ensures the conservation of the status-quo in order to facilitate, its own and more importantly, the species’ reproduction over the long haul
- the ancients thought that society and conservation came first. They conceived of happiness as the satisfaction of the group. Individual happiness was thus understood as resulting from the act of giving to the others. And so tribal economies developed as ‘gift economies’ which ensured trust among all and resulted in highly cohesive societal groups. At this point of the reasoning I posit that the differentiation between societies relates to the balancing act between the polarities of the species. Extreme individualism and minimal state input would be the characterization of our Western Late-Modern societies. The idea of tweaking the input of both polarities let us discover a very wide range of possible societal models. But at the end of the day the only question that really counts is how do we appreciate which particular models are satisfying the ultimate imperative of the species which is to reproduce life over the long haul. In light of this question the choice, between a societal lifespan of tens of thousands of years versus a societal lifespan of a few hundreds of years, is evident. Is it not?
2. how do the interconnections between all species and other entities operate? Species cooperate among themselves to answer their various needs:
- plants and animals are the primary source of food. For our ancestors they were also one of the most important sources of raw materials necessary to produce goods for daily use,
- plants supply remedies against sickness or other dysfunctions of the body,
- the consciousness about the inter-connections, between all species and the other entities within our local context, helped our ancestors to understand how deeply interdependent all entities really are and this fostered a profound respect for all entities.
3. The success, of the dance between the polarities of species and the interconnections between all species and other entities, relies first and foremost on the sustainability of societal behaviors. The ancients ensured sustainability by adhering to the precautionary principle. This means that any innovation or change must be tested thoroughly for any side-effects that could possibly hamper the life conditions of future generations. Such a prudent approach towards change explains why tribal societies thrived over such a long timespan. And the disregard in Modernity for this principle also explains the raft of side-effects that threatens the survival of so many species in Late-Modernity; our own included!
organic art as an evolution from Modernism
Tribal societies were the initiators of a profound awareness about how the principle of life operates but this awareness started waning with the advent of power societies, and civilization, which focused on other priorities than the operation of the principle of life. Modernity dealt the fatal blow to this traditional awareness about how the principle of life operates and by Late-Modernity its side-effects have put in motion the infernal dynamic of the 6th mass extinction. But humans are so entranced by the consumerism offered to them, by the reason that is at work within capital, that they can’t let go of it. Instead of letting go of it they want more of it and so the situation gets worse from year to year …
Along the whole path of societal evolution the artist was placed in a privileged spot to observe the working of his society. Today he observes that Western societies have atomized and that the separation of their citizens forces them into loneliness and despair which inevitably results in a trend of falling life expectancy and collapsing societies.
This observation confronts the mind of the Late-Modern artist to the societal loss of awareness, about the fundamental principles of life, that started with power societies and accelerated under Modernity. It follows thus that life is taking on a new urgency for particularly sensitive artists and this explains their sudden frenetic search for knowledge in Late-Modernity. What we are witnessing is quite unique indeed. Artist are reconnecting with their inner man of knowledge and are breaking up the traditional separation between image makers and men of knowledge that was initiated by power societies some 5-6000 years ago and was relayed further down the road by Modernity.
This Late-Modern unification at the margins of societies, of the image maker and the men of knowledge in one individual, is something that should be celebrated. It means indeed that we are leaving a 5-6000 year old era of ‘propaganda images’, that were imposed on all, and we are slowly transitioning into a new era of ‘knowledge images’ that each artist offers for all to share. The otherness, between the old era that we are leaving and the new era that we are slowly transitioning into, could not be starker indeed.
In the old era, of power ways of doing, images were imposed as illustrations of the truth that was imposed by the men of knowledge who were in cahoot with the men of power for ensuring the reproduction of their privileges. But truth is nothing else than a perception that is being forced in the minds of all. As such we can safely say that this was an era of propaganda pure and simple.
Today in Late-Modernity we are entering into a transition towards what comes in After-Modernity. I was writing here above “we are leaving a 5-6000 year old era of ‘propaganda images’”. In light of this we should perhaps better change the terminology for the outcome of the present transition, from After-Modernity, to After-Power… We are still in the early stages of this transition and so what comes after Modernity is still not well defined. It is thus understandable that different interpretations are coexisting. But the more what comes after Modernity materializes in facts on the ground the more the artists will have to adapt their interpretation to these facts. So with time passing we’ll assist at a unification of the artists’ interpretations. I personally am not interested to give an image of the future. I prefer to concentrate on the fundamentals of the principle of life (organic art) that inevitably will be affirmed as the foundations of the future worldview of After-Modernity; that is if humanity does not go extinct beforehand.
But it downs now on me that organic art is like a natural evolution of Modernism. As I have laid out in chapter4 4 of this series: “the members of the avant-garde wanted to make visual signs of their societies’ changing views about reality. They sensed that a new worldview was in the making and they wanted to surf on it. Unfortunately they had no real understanding about what that changing worldview was all about. Their visual signs were experiments, in expressing their feelings, out of which they hoped would emerge a representation of that new worldview. But this was all a very naive take on how human societies work. And as would be expected the outcome, after a few decades of such experiments, was a complete failure.”
What I see taking place nowadays is a continuation of the effort of Modernism to illustrate the worldview of the day. But this time the effort is being acted out in an animistic fashion by unifying the artist and the man of knowledge. So, to sum it all up, the Late-Modern evolution taking place on the creative side of visual art goes something like follows :
- on one side side organic art prolongs the modernist approach in as much as its practitioners want “to make visual signs of the changing views of ‘their societies’ about reality. They sensed that a new worldview was in the making and they wanted to surf on it”.
- on another side organic art addresses the weakness of the members of the Modernist avant-garde in as much as “they had no real understanding about what that changing worldview was all about”. Organic art does this by trying to rejoin the animist practice that consecrated the unity between man of knowledge and image maker. In Late-Modernity, on the margins of society, some image makers are indeed doing their homework apprenticing the knowledge that applies to our present context …
subject matter of organic art = the fundamentals of the principle of life
Throughout the whole of history the subject matter of art was the illustration, of the worldview of the man of knowledge of the day, for all to share. In other words the historical nature of visual art has always been to act as an instrument of knowledge sharing. This definition, of the subject matter of art, applies equally to tribal-knowledge-images as well as to power-propaganda-images.
Sometime in High-Modernity the men of knowledge disappeared. They have been replaced by scientists, and all kinds of charlatans, who are competing on the market place of ideas for the capture of the citizen’s minds … In this new context traditional worldviews have gradually vanished and by Late-Modernity they were completely forgotten. Modernism in art was a reaction to this change of the guardians of knowledge. The Modernist avant-garde wanted to illustrate what they correctly sensed was their societies adoption of novel vision of reality. But their reaction to the change of the guardians of knowledge went overboard for the simple reason that scientists are not offering a ready-made worldview for all to share.
Scientists merely offer scientific knowings about bits and pieces of reality that are rooted in ideological entrapments that imprison the minds in a rational and materialistic understanding of reality. Their research is indeed financed by capital (private and public). Scientific research can thus be nothing else than the outcome of an investment of capital. So it is the reason, that is at work within capital, that determines what kind of research work is worth an investment. Herein resides the ideological entrapment. All research is indeed fulfilling the need, of capital for profits, which is based on the ideological premise of unlimited growth. But this ideological premise runs counter to reality. Unlimited growth is impossible within the confines of the limited context of mother earth. This ideological premise assumes that there are unlimited resources but this is simply a fallacy that reality rapidly sanctions with consequences. I call such consequences side-effects of Modernity.
As a result of these side-effects of Modernity humanity is at an impasse. This is definitely not a satisfactory position. There is only one way to survive this impasse. The way is to go back to the fundamentals of the principle of life. If there is human life in the future its roots will definitely be grounded in those fundamentals. I laid out, what these fundamentals of the principle of life are all about, here above in “organic art as the flow, of what works, on the waves of time”.
6.2. why organic art?
I
started to write in order to keep my sanity in the midst of what I
perceive is the general madness that overwhelms us all in
Late-Modernity. Writing imposes discipline in the development of ideas
and this opens one’s thinking to an enlarged field of perception. The
easiest part in perception is to come to see the context in which we
evolve. The most difficult part is to understand the functioning of this
context. We indeed soon learn that everything is interconnected and so
to understanding our present context we are driven in all kinds of
directions.
The most promising direction that I ever found to answer the question “what is art?” is “how did art emerge in the first place?”. The reason for its emergence should indeed remain as valid a reason to justify its deployment in our Late-Modern societies.
life versus nothingness
As many other image makers I eventually came to the realization that visual arts, in Late-Modernity, have reached a moment of nothingness. This does not mean that art is dead. It simply means that, in our present societal context, the historical nature of art has vanished and the artist is forced to face the nothingness of it all. Once you reach that point in your thinking you find yourself asking “what is art?”, “how did art emerge?”, “why are we attracted to art?”, and so on…
Those who have tried to answer such questions know what is meaningless. These are indeed very difficult questions. After decades of research I personally came to the conclusion that no sensical answers can be found within the confine of art itself. The answer resides in the broader context of the working of societies. Art plays a certain role in society. If this was not the case art whould simply have had no reason to emerge in the first place. The late-Modernism slogan, of ‘art for art’s sake’, does not contradict the fact that art plays a certain role in society. Art for art’s sake is indeed nothing else than a tautology concocted by simple minded marketeers. But this tautology finds no application outside of the context of Late-Modernism and more particularly outside of the putsch by propagandists and merchants to own art.
After 5 decades of searching and thinking my writing has expanded to numerous fields. Starting from “what is art?” I landed exploring “how did art emerge in the first place?” which forced me to answer the question “how did societies emerge?” and then “how did societies evolve to the present stage?”. Along the way I eventually discovered the answer to “how did art emerge?” and to many other questions. Then emerged a new question that monopolized vast stretches of my times: “how did art land in nothingness?” which obliged me to research how societal evolution concluded with Late-Modernity.
Western Late-Modernity is best described as the rise of societal atomization which implies that the answers to all questions have become individual answers that compete among themselves to get the attention of a large public. This in turn means that the competition between individual answers is nothing else than a way to siphon off money from the public’s pockets. But more fundamentally this also means that answers are no longer shared by the whole of society which then ends up being overwhelmed by a generalized feeling of distrust that melts away any remnants of societal cohesion. And this is where the principle of life itself is being threatened. There is indeed always the potential that society pulls the species in its collapse.
Atomized societies repulse sane and rational persons but attract ruthless and unhinged psychopaths. Under psychopaths societal governance is no longer about managing the commons in the interest of the people. Managing the commons is now about siphoning the income of the 99% and filling the pockets of the 1%. In the midst of such a context the art-world, which is owned by propagandists and merchants, quarantines galleries and museums from anything that could generate a meaningful discussion about political, philosophical, social, or any other matters. Garbage is ok. Meaningful thinking is definitely rejected.
In such a societal context real artists end up on the margins of their societies surviving on meager incomes from small jobs grabbed here and there. No wonder questions are flying in all directions. But the problem is that answers are sparse. Disillusionment sets in and everyone turns inward. I have gone through all that myself so I know what I’m talking about. To keep my sanity I started to write about the questions that were flying in my mind. After some 5 decades I discovered that in the sheer madness of Late-Modernity there remains little else than the wonder of life and love.
Life is love and love is life. Writing allowed me to discover that absolutely nothing trumps the fundamentals of the principle of life to make sense of human reality.
grounding our emerging future
The fundamentals of the principle of life help us ground our minds in reality. Most intellectual exposés and debates nowadays are simply meaningless bla bla that nobody cares about any longer. What attracts us back to reality is the wonder of life. And having rediscovered reality we leave behind all sterile intellectual debates. Over time I also discovered that ideas and philosophies have to be grounded in daily life. What I mean by that is that ideas and philosophies, that bring nothing to the table in term of helping people to ease their daily struggles for life, are ideas and philosophies that are sterile and should better be forgotten. In our present context sterile ideas are indeed a waste of time.
Thinking and writing have convinced me that to come out of the present Western madness of nothingness we better start to watch out for signs of the future that are starting to sprout under our noses. I tried to do just that in the preceding chapters and along the way I exposed how humanity is presently facing a real predicament that can be summed up as follows:
The most promising direction that I ever found to answer the question “what is art?” is “how did art emerge in the first place?”. The reason for its emergence should indeed remain as valid a reason to justify its deployment in our Late-Modern societies.
life versus nothingness
As many other image makers I eventually came to the realization that visual arts, in Late-Modernity, have reached a moment of nothingness. This does not mean that art is dead. It simply means that, in our present societal context, the historical nature of art has vanished and the artist is forced to face the nothingness of it all. Once you reach that point in your thinking you find yourself asking “what is art?”, “how did art emerge?”, “why are we attracted to art?”, and so on…
Those who have tried to answer such questions know what is meaningless. These are indeed very difficult questions. After decades of research I personally came to the conclusion that no sensical answers can be found within the confine of art itself. The answer resides in the broader context of the working of societies. Art plays a certain role in society. If this was not the case art whould simply have had no reason to emerge in the first place. The late-Modernism slogan, of ‘art for art’s sake’, does not contradict the fact that art plays a certain role in society. Art for art’s sake is indeed nothing else than a tautology concocted by simple minded marketeers. But this tautology finds no application outside of the context of Late-Modernism and more particularly outside of the putsch by propagandists and merchants to own art.
After 5 decades of searching and thinking my writing has expanded to numerous fields. Starting from “what is art?” I landed exploring “how did art emerge in the first place?” which forced me to answer the question “how did societies emerge?” and then “how did societies evolve to the present stage?”. Along the way I eventually discovered the answer to “how did art emerge?” and to many other questions. Then emerged a new question that monopolized vast stretches of my times: “how did art land in nothingness?” which obliged me to research how societal evolution concluded with Late-Modernity.
Western Late-Modernity is best described as the rise of societal atomization which implies that the answers to all questions have become individual answers that compete among themselves to get the attention of a large public. This in turn means that the competition between individual answers is nothing else than a way to siphon off money from the public’s pockets. But more fundamentally this also means that answers are no longer shared by the whole of society which then ends up being overwhelmed by a generalized feeling of distrust that melts away any remnants of societal cohesion. And this is where the principle of life itself is being threatened. There is indeed always the potential that society pulls the species in its collapse.
Atomized societies repulse sane and rational persons but attract ruthless and unhinged psychopaths. Under psychopaths societal governance is no longer about managing the commons in the interest of the people. Managing the commons is now about siphoning the income of the 99% and filling the pockets of the 1%. In the midst of such a context the art-world, which is owned by propagandists and merchants, quarantines galleries and museums from anything that could generate a meaningful discussion about political, philosophical, social, or any other matters. Garbage is ok. Meaningful thinking is definitely rejected.
In such a societal context real artists end up on the margins of their societies surviving on meager incomes from small jobs grabbed here and there. No wonder questions are flying in all directions. But the problem is that answers are sparse. Disillusionment sets in and everyone turns inward. I have gone through all that myself so I know what I’m talking about. To keep my sanity I started to write about the questions that were flying in my mind. After some 5 decades I discovered that in the sheer madness of Late-Modernity there remains little else than the wonder of life and love.
Life is love and love is life. Writing allowed me to discover that absolutely nothing trumps the fundamentals of the principle of life to make sense of human reality.
grounding our emerging future
The fundamentals of the principle of life help us ground our minds in reality. Most intellectual exposés and debates nowadays are simply meaningless bla bla that nobody cares about any longer. What attracts us back to reality is the wonder of life. And having rediscovered reality we leave behind all sterile intellectual debates. Over time I also discovered that ideas and philosophies have to be grounded in daily life. What I mean by that is that ideas and philosophies, that bring nothing to the table in term of helping people to ease their daily struggles for life, are ideas and philosophies that are sterile and should better be forgotten. In our present context sterile ideas are indeed a waste of time.
Thinking and writing have convinced me that to come out of the present Western madness of nothingness we better start to watch out for signs of the future that are starting to sprout under our noses. I tried to do just that in the preceding chapters and along the way I exposed how humanity is presently facing a real predicament that can be summed up as follows:
- Crises of governance-world + side-effects of Modernity = societal collapse → …
- → population collapse
- → fight for survival
- → adoption of a new worldview in After-Modernity
- → adoption of a new model of society
- → the historical nature of art comes back with a vengeance.
This summary of our present human predicament ought to inspire some adjustments in our present daily behavior? Is it not?
As I wrote here above ‘the fundamentals of the principle of life’ will eventually drive our future societies on the path of a sustainable future. If not there will be no future for our species. These fundamentals will form the core of the new worldview that will be shared by all in After-Modernity. And in my mind I have this deep certainty that under the sheer necessity of ensuring their survival our descendants will automatically learn to adapt their behaviors to these fundamentals.
With this in mind, I personally think that, we should feel incentivized presently to delve into what these ‘fundamentals of the principle of life’ are all about. It will help us get a clearer picture about the future and this will also inject some urgently needed sense into our present lives. Understanding these fundamentals will furthermore give us some clues, about what to look for and where to look, to discover the first sprouts of what will grow into the mature characteristics of the future.
change in the present
Delving in the ‘fundamentals of the principle of life’ changes our outlook on life and we come to see everything around us in a new light. One, of the first, things that jumps to our attention are these otherworldly characters that are sprouting, in the present, on the ruins of the past: street art, Xieyi art, visionary art, organic art, micro visualizations, macro visualizations, abstractions of ideas, …
Shaken as we are, by the nuclear risks that are inherent to the crisis of the governance-world and by the risks of life extinction that accompany the side-effects of Modernity, we gradually rediscover the primacy of the ‘fundamentals of the principle of life’ as they apply in all fields of life: balance in the polarities in life processes, interconnectedness, plants as remedies against sickness, ancestral living, ancestral techniques, the precautionary principle, …
When looking attentively around us we see that ‘formal characters’ of a new ideation system are sprouting all over and in the most unexpected places. They all seem to indicate that a renewed awareness, of ‘the fundamentals of the principle of life’, is slowly taking root. All these formal characters, and I only mentioned a few here, point to a different future. It seems as if more and more people were gradually inoculated by a perception changing virus that actualizes in the present the way of thinking and living in the future.
The few most sensitive souls are perceiving the future as if by looking through foggy glasses. This does not really give us to see the reality of the future but it gives us to gain an impression about its new forms and colors. And such an impressionist actualization, in the present of future ways, seems to be urging us to mold our present thinking and actions after these impressionist visions. There is definitely a call from the future in the air of our present times that is accelerating the movement of societal change. But it is not as if the whole of our societies were ready to make the jump in the future. This call of the future is only accessible to the minority of most sensitive souls among us.
Intrigued and hopeful that these impressionist visions portend better ways ahead the few who hear the call, in the air of our times, are sharpening their skills-set in the hope to become better attuned to the direction taken by our ever-changing world. The minority who hears the call is growing but the threshold that will ignite the paradigm shift is far away and I’m afraid that this threshold will not be reached by sheer human will. What I mean to say by that is the following. The paradigm shift announcing After-Modernity will be imposed on humanity as the result of the interactions of the multiple factors resulting from the crisis of the governance-world + the side-effects of Modernity.
It would be highly presumptuous, not to say arrogant, from our part to be invoking our capacity to beat the odds of societal and population collapse. Realism counsels to surf on the waves of societal change and to stay alert. In our present context I think that visual artists are perhaps the ones who are best positioned to share with society at large their foggy visions of what I call the ‘fundamentals of the principle of life’. They constitute the foundations on which our descendants will have to build their new worldview in After-Modernity. And in light of this I think that the sharing by visual artists, of an organic approximation of their perception of these fundamentals, constitutes an act of bravery that would restore the historical nature of art in the public’s eye.
Restoring, the historical nature of art in the public’s eye, would be a heroic act with far reaching consequences. For one it would coalesce the most sensitive souls around a common organic vision about the deep forces that are moving our contemporary societies. Secondly it would shed some common sense in the contemporary conversation about the path societies are on and the trajectory that leads to the future of humanity. Thirdly it would shed some light on the future territory of human life. And lastly it would reinstate some trust among the art lovers who would rejoice at the observation that the postmodern madness is over. This would perhaps also reconcile societies at large with art after so many decades of rejection.
6.3. openness of life
openness of the artist’s mind to knowledge
Our search for the answer to the question “what is art?” brought us back to is origins. We discovered that art emerged in the first societies as a tool of the (wo)men of knowledge of the day to share their worldview with all their fellow tribesmen. We also discovered that art continued to assume that function for the tens of thousands of years until tribal societies were superseded by power societies.
With power societies the image maker and the (wo)men of knowledge were separated and the function of art changed. The men of knowledge (the priests) were at the service of the men of power and in order to keep their privileges they imposed the submission of all to their truth. And so the function of art transformed into a tool of submission while the process art morphed into propaganda.
With Early-Modernity the long distance merchants entered into competition with the priests and proposed a new narrative as descriptor of the truth. Submission was superseded by fostering desire and imitation and the function of art changed from being a tool of submission into a luxury poster advertising the new values of the merchants: individualism and private property.
Influenced by the 19th century boom in science and technology Modernism rejected all past worldviews and ambitioned to propose a new and more profound descriptor of the truth. But the avant-garde was not equipped with the knowledge to form a new worldview and so it failed in its self assigned mission. Postmodernism surfed on this failure and proposed that henceforth all worldviews should be abolished. But what resulted was the great artistic and cultural nothingness of Late-Modernity that launched neoliberalism as the new form of society imposed, by big capital holders and their servants, to all the world.
This sketch, which condenses the content of the 5 preceding posts in this series, explains the historical process that landed us in the madness of Late-Modernity.
We live in an extreme episode of ‘knowing it all’ individualism that reduced Western societies into atomization and thus fostered their complete submission to big capital holders and their servants. These societies have since then been cleansed institutionally and transformed into totalitarian technological agencies whose mission it is to suppress their people into complete submission.
Worldviews have completely vanished. They have been replaced by a daily torrent of propaganda and lies spewed by state agencies and the media which acts as their mouthpiece. This noise machine has demolished the last remnants of common sense and in their place non stop loud beats of madness echo in the minds. In the meantime the center of gravity of the economy-world has left Washington and the 6th mass extinction is proceeding at an accelerating pace.
No wonder that in the midst of this madness art is turning inward. But this is not going to bring back sense in the minds of artists. The liberation from the madness is nevertheless achievable by all. Its path passes through the accumulation of knowledge about “what is art?”, “how did art emerge?”, “how did art land into nothingness in Late-Modernity?”. The accumulation of knowledge is an adventure of discovery that fabricates sense out of the madness.
The artist openness to knowledge eventually confronts her/him with the sense and the wonder of life and enlightens her/him about the fundamentals of the principle of life. This is when the gates, to the organic nature of the fundamentals of the principle of life, turn wide open supplying art with an infinite subject-matter.
openness of the artist’s mind to the flow
Knowledge is not absolute. It procures working answers to the enquirer within the borders of his own contextual setting. But these answers are not necessarily valid outside of those borders or within the borders of the contextual settings of someone else. One’s contextual setting is like a limited ensemble that is a part of multiple greater ensembles. Example of greater ensembles that immediately come to mind relate to geography, to time, to civilizations and worldviews, and so on…
We are all looking at things, or thinking up ideas, from within the territory of our limited contextual settings. Lets follow up with illustrations of how this limitation applies to the 3 examples of greater ensembles that I mentioned here above.
Our geographic contextual settings are necessarily limited. A New-Yorker, for example, views things through a New-York lens and automatically comes up with ideas that work in the context of New-York. But there is no guarantee that these ideas will still be working after transplanting them to Beijing. Art is larger than matters pertaining to one’s own local context. In other words provincialism does not sit well nor with art nor with knowledge.
Our temporal contextual settings are necessarily limited. In whatever geographic context people think automatically in present terms and so they interpret the actions and behaviors of humans having lived in earlier periods by fitting them in our present context. But doing so we transform the nature of their experience and our perception ends up being fatally flawed. One good example of such a completely flawed perception is the modern view of tribal life. First we qualify tribal live as being a primitive life. The same goes for tribal art which we see as primitive art. But more importantly perhaps we view the economic aspect of tribal life as a primitive form of exchange. I would argue that our understanding of the ‘tribal gift exchange value’ is tainted by our present context of certainty that the optimum form of exchange is our own form of ‘moneyed exchange value’. So we characterize as primitive something that we don’t understand simply because it is different than what is being practiced within our own context. It does not take much imagination to ‘see’ that all these characterizations are no more than grotesque transformations of what was the reality of tribal life. From the perspective of someone who lived 50,000 years ago our characterizations about his life would assuredly appear as sheer fantastic lunacies. But these characterizations are no less fantastic for those of us who tried to get an in-depth understanding of tribal life from a present perspective that recognizes the temporal limitation of our thinking and tries to remedy for it. The French understood the irony of the situation when, a few years ago, they opened a museum of tribal art and so they called their museum the museum of first arts (arts premiers). From the perspective of an impartial and informed analyst in Late-modernity it makes no doubt at all that the Late-Modern human predicament is the ultimate proof that the tribal societal model of society was the most successful at implementing the imperative of reproduction of our species over the long haul. Art is larger than these kind of temporary perceptions pertaining to the present in our local context. In other words temporal provincialism does not sit well nor with art nor with knowledge. Both target a higher dimension than the temporary perceptions forced on us by our present local contextual setting.
The axioms of civilization that apply in our local contextual settings are distorting our understanding of the other who is living in the context of another worldview in the realm of another civilization. But I know of very few people who can comment sensibly about this subject. The present trade war between the US and China is a befitting example that illustrates how the parties are misjudging each others intentions simply because they have no clue whatsoever about how their own thinking is forced upon themselves by the axioms of their civilization. What I refer to here is the ignorance about how one’s own thinking is being forced in one’s mind. Imagine now the sheer ignorance about how ‘the thinking of the others’ is being forced upon them. What I refer to here is that the assumptions, of US negotiators and commentators, are forced in their minds by the axiom of dualism in Christianity. This axiom posits that a Christian is always on the side of god and thus of good. Convinced about the truth of this axiomatic assumption, US negotiators and commentators, judge the ‘different other’ (in this case the Chinese) as being evil for refusing to submit to their neoliberal societal system. There is no other way to interpret the certainties expressed by the US side that their neoliberal societal system represent the ultimate truth. But viewed from the Chinese perspective this US certainty of detaining the societal truth is laughable at best. From their perspective the liberal system has existed for no more than 200 years and its neo-version for no more than half a century. The Chinese view governance from a long haul perspective and integrate in their governance system all elements from other systems that they judge being profitable. But it never came to their minds to throw over board the governance knowledge base that their ancestors acquired over the past millennia.
How does art fit in this discussion? Art is larger than matters pertaining to how the axioms of our civilization are forcing our thinking in our local context. Art, and more particularly the subject-matter of organic art, relates to the fundamentals of life and these fundamentals deflect the forcing, of the artists thinking, by their axioms of civilization.
Knowledge is the antidote to provincialism.
Provincialism means laboring as an unconscious individual within the borders of one’s own local context. Knowledge thrives to reach consciousness of the interdependence between the limited ensemble represented by one’s own local context and the multiple greater ensembles that it is a part of.
Knowledge flows, or surfs, over the waves generated by the different human local contexts. One would think that this must imply sufficient knowledge about the different contexts so that one can avoid falling in their traps. But this is not really the case. The knowledge, of the higher dimensions of the fundamentals of the principle of life, acts like the hard reality that confronts human ideologies and annihilates their believers if these ideologies run counter to the principle of life.
Power societies produced worldviews, or power ideologies, that were imposed on the population. But the present convergence, of the crisis of the governance-world with the side-effects of Modernity, confronts societies and individuals with the fundamentals of the principle of life. As a consequence Western worldviews are now fading away. Things appear to turn out differently for the Chinese worldview or Chinese Traditional Culture. Over the last decades the Chinese population embarked indeed on a trip of rejuvenation of their worldview and their governance system sized this as an opportunity to cement a stronger societal cohesion.
The axioms of civilizations sustain the foundation upon which worldviews were built as the walls and roofs of the societal houses and the daily culture appears to be no more than the decoration of these walls and roofs. The foundations remain intact to this very day. So it appears that the confrontation with the fundamentals of the principle of life only impacted the worldviews of Western societies and their daily culture. Why such a divergence between China and the West is a vast and interesting topic but this series is not the right place to delve into this subject.
Suffice to say here that the mastery, of the higher dimensions of the fundamentals of the principle of life, is what powers the flow or the surf, of the men of knowledge and of the real artists, over the ideologies produced in the different local human contextual settings. If you can’t surf away, from a local contextual setting, your mind gets captured and you become a believer in the ideology of that particular contextual setting. In power societies that ideology is power propaganda and your belief in propaganda separates you from people’s belief in the proganda of other settings.
openness of the artist’s mind to the flow past his ego driven will, want, and desires
I have laid out earlier that beauty is the aesthetic form of organic artworks and that the fundamentals of the principle of life are its subject-matter. Remains still the question of the process of creation itself. By that I mean the form and the substance of the process.
The form of the process relates to :
Our search for the answer to the question “what is art?” brought us back to is origins. We discovered that art emerged in the first societies as a tool of the (wo)men of knowledge of the day to share their worldview with all their fellow tribesmen. We also discovered that art continued to assume that function for the tens of thousands of years until tribal societies were superseded by power societies.
With power societies the image maker and the (wo)men of knowledge were separated and the function of art changed. The men of knowledge (the priests) were at the service of the men of power and in order to keep their privileges they imposed the submission of all to their truth. And so the function of art transformed into a tool of submission while the process art morphed into propaganda.
With Early-Modernity the long distance merchants entered into competition with the priests and proposed a new narrative as descriptor of the truth. Submission was superseded by fostering desire and imitation and the function of art changed from being a tool of submission into a luxury poster advertising the new values of the merchants: individualism and private property.
Influenced by the 19th century boom in science and technology Modernism rejected all past worldviews and ambitioned to propose a new and more profound descriptor of the truth. But the avant-garde was not equipped with the knowledge to form a new worldview and so it failed in its self assigned mission. Postmodernism surfed on this failure and proposed that henceforth all worldviews should be abolished. But what resulted was the great artistic and cultural nothingness of Late-Modernity that launched neoliberalism as the new form of society imposed, by big capital holders and their servants, to all the world.
This sketch, which condenses the content of the 5 preceding posts in this series, explains the historical process that landed us in the madness of Late-Modernity.
We live in an extreme episode of ‘knowing it all’ individualism that reduced Western societies into atomization and thus fostered their complete submission to big capital holders and their servants. These societies have since then been cleansed institutionally and transformed into totalitarian technological agencies whose mission it is to suppress their people into complete submission.
Worldviews have completely vanished. They have been replaced by a daily torrent of propaganda and lies spewed by state agencies and the media which acts as their mouthpiece. This noise machine has demolished the last remnants of common sense and in their place non stop loud beats of madness echo in the minds. In the meantime the center of gravity of the economy-world has left Washington and the 6th mass extinction is proceeding at an accelerating pace.
No wonder that in the midst of this madness art is turning inward. But this is not going to bring back sense in the minds of artists. The liberation from the madness is nevertheless achievable by all. Its path passes through the accumulation of knowledge about “what is art?”, “how did art emerge?”, “how did art land into nothingness in Late-Modernity?”. The accumulation of knowledge is an adventure of discovery that fabricates sense out of the madness.
The artist openness to knowledge eventually confronts her/him with the sense and the wonder of life and enlightens her/him about the fundamentals of the principle of life. This is when the gates, to the organic nature of the fundamentals of the principle of life, turn wide open supplying art with an infinite subject-matter.
openness of the artist’s mind to the flow
Knowledge is not absolute. It procures working answers to the enquirer within the borders of his own contextual setting. But these answers are not necessarily valid outside of those borders or within the borders of the contextual settings of someone else. One’s contextual setting is like a limited ensemble that is a part of multiple greater ensembles. Example of greater ensembles that immediately come to mind relate to geography, to time, to civilizations and worldviews, and so on…
We are all looking at things, or thinking up ideas, from within the territory of our limited contextual settings. Lets follow up with illustrations of how this limitation applies to the 3 examples of greater ensembles that I mentioned here above.
Our geographic contextual settings are necessarily limited. A New-Yorker, for example, views things through a New-York lens and automatically comes up with ideas that work in the context of New-York. But there is no guarantee that these ideas will still be working after transplanting them to Beijing. Art is larger than matters pertaining to one’s own local context. In other words provincialism does not sit well nor with art nor with knowledge.
Our temporal contextual settings are necessarily limited. In whatever geographic context people think automatically in present terms and so they interpret the actions and behaviors of humans having lived in earlier periods by fitting them in our present context. But doing so we transform the nature of their experience and our perception ends up being fatally flawed. One good example of such a completely flawed perception is the modern view of tribal life. First we qualify tribal live as being a primitive life. The same goes for tribal art which we see as primitive art. But more importantly perhaps we view the economic aspect of tribal life as a primitive form of exchange. I would argue that our understanding of the ‘tribal gift exchange value’ is tainted by our present context of certainty that the optimum form of exchange is our own form of ‘moneyed exchange value’. So we characterize as primitive something that we don’t understand simply because it is different than what is being practiced within our own context. It does not take much imagination to ‘see’ that all these characterizations are no more than grotesque transformations of what was the reality of tribal life. From the perspective of someone who lived 50,000 years ago our characterizations about his life would assuredly appear as sheer fantastic lunacies. But these characterizations are no less fantastic for those of us who tried to get an in-depth understanding of tribal life from a present perspective that recognizes the temporal limitation of our thinking and tries to remedy for it. The French understood the irony of the situation when, a few years ago, they opened a museum of tribal art and so they called their museum the museum of first arts (arts premiers). From the perspective of an impartial and informed analyst in Late-modernity it makes no doubt at all that the Late-Modern human predicament is the ultimate proof that the tribal societal model of society was the most successful at implementing the imperative of reproduction of our species over the long haul. Art is larger than these kind of temporary perceptions pertaining to the present in our local context. In other words temporal provincialism does not sit well nor with art nor with knowledge. Both target a higher dimension than the temporary perceptions forced on us by our present local contextual setting.
The axioms of civilization that apply in our local contextual settings are distorting our understanding of the other who is living in the context of another worldview in the realm of another civilization. But I know of very few people who can comment sensibly about this subject. The present trade war between the US and China is a befitting example that illustrates how the parties are misjudging each others intentions simply because they have no clue whatsoever about how their own thinking is forced upon themselves by the axioms of their civilization. What I refer to here is the ignorance about how one’s own thinking is being forced in one’s mind. Imagine now the sheer ignorance about how ‘the thinking of the others’ is being forced upon them. What I refer to here is that the assumptions, of US negotiators and commentators, are forced in their minds by the axiom of dualism in Christianity. This axiom posits that a Christian is always on the side of god and thus of good. Convinced about the truth of this axiomatic assumption, US negotiators and commentators, judge the ‘different other’ (in this case the Chinese) as being evil for refusing to submit to their neoliberal societal system. There is no other way to interpret the certainties expressed by the US side that their neoliberal societal system represent the ultimate truth. But viewed from the Chinese perspective this US certainty of detaining the societal truth is laughable at best. From their perspective the liberal system has existed for no more than 200 years and its neo-version for no more than half a century. The Chinese view governance from a long haul perspective and integrate in their governance system all elements from other systems that they judge being profitable. But it never came to their minds to throw over board the governance knowledge base that their ancestors acquired over the past millennia.
How does art fit in this discussion? Art is larger than matters pertaining to how the axioms of our civilization are forcing our thinking in our local context. Art, and more particularly the subject-matter of organic art, relates to the fundamentals of life and these fundamentals deflect the forcing, of the artists thinking, by their axioms of civilization.
Knowledge is the antidote to provincialism.
Provincialism means laboring as an unconscious individual within the borders of one’s own local context. Knowledge thrives to reach consciousness of the interdependence between the limited ensemble represented by one’s own local context and the multiple greater ensembles that it is a part of.
Knowledge flows, or surfs, over the waves generated by the different human local contexts. One would think that this must imply sufficient knowledge about the different contexts so that one can avoid falling in their traps. But this is not really the case. The knowledge, of the higher dimensions of the fundamentals of the principle of life, acts like the hard reality that confronts human ideologies and annihilates their believers if these ideologies run counter to the principle of life.
Power societies produced worldviews, or power ideologies, that were imposed on the population. But the present convergence, of the crisis of the governance-world with the side-effects of Modernity, confronts societies and individuals with the fundamentals of the principle of life. As a consequence Western worldviews are now fading away. Things appear to turn out differently for the Chinese worldview or Chinese Traditional Culture. Over the last decades the Chinese population embarked indeed on a trip of rejuvenation of their worldview and their governance system sized this as an opportunity to cement a stronger societal cohesion.
The axioms of civilizations sustain the foundation upon which worldviews were built as the walls and roofs of the societal houses and the daily culture appears to be no more than the decoration of these walls and roofs. The foundations remain intact to this very day. So it appears that the confrontation with the fundamentals of the principle of life only impacted the worldviews of Western societies and their daily culture. Why such a divergence between China and the West is a vast and interesting topic but this series is not the right place to delve into this subject.
Suffice to say here that the mastery, of the higher dimensions of the fundamentals of the principle of life, is what powers the flow or the surf, of the men of knowledge and of the real artists, over the ideologies produced in the different local human contextual settings. If you can’t surf away, from a local contextual setting, your mind gets captured and you become a believer in the ideology of that particular contextual setting. In power societies that ideology is power propaganda and your belief in propaganda separates you from people’s belief in the proganda of other settings.
openness of the artist’s mind to the flow past his ego driven will, want, and desires
I have laid out earlier that beauty is the aesthetic form of organic artworks and that the fundamentals of the principle of life are its subject-matter. Remains still the question of the process of creation itself. By that I mean the form and the substance of the process.
The form of the process relates to :
- the state of mind of the image maker,
- the organic nature of the process of creation,
- the organic quality of the work.
The state of mind of the image maker directly impacts his treatment of the form and subject-matter in his work. Competition between the individuals is the most distinctive trait in the era of Late-Modernity. As such creators are easily falling prey to fame, or money making, desires which fully mobilize their will to satisfy such desires. But the resulting work then takes an air of pretentiousness and stiffness that kills any semblance of life and naturalness. As a result the image appears unattractively inorganic, artificial, and somehow repulsive. This is certainly not what art is all about.
A work of art needs to attract eyeballs otherwise it fails its objective which is to instill an impression, a feeling, an idea in the mind of as many observers as possible. Yes the intention behind a work of art is to instill meaning in the mind of the observer. That was its historical nature along the whole history of mankind at least until postmodernism came along. If eyeballs are repulsed by the formal aspect of a work they will have no chance to focus on its subject-matter and the work thus fails to reach its objective even before the observer has had the opportunity to focus on his observation.
To avoid this pitfall the creation has to be growing an image in an organic process in which the creator’s will does not interfere and the image grows by itself. In such an approach the activity of the creator is limited to the application, of her/his ‘problem solving’ skills, to the adjustment of forms, lines and colors, till she or him are feeling that the adjustment truly work. In other words the creator only stops applying her/his skills when she/he feels to have attained a moment of truth in the combinations of forms, lines and colors.
At all time, in the creation process, the mind of the creator is focused like a laser beam on (1) the organic growth of the image and (2) the organic character of the final product. These act like the polarities of the work. The creator jumps from the one aspect to the other. At each jump she/he adjusts the combinations of forms, lines, and colors which changes the balance between the polarities. This then obliges the creator to jump to the other polarity to re-adjust the balancing. This whole process is like a long dance that eventually ends when the creator’s mind is satisfied by a moment of truth and this moment of truth is when the polarities have reached a perfect balance. This formal aspect of this whole process is similar I think in all creative endeavors. It’s a craft of adjustment, adjustment and more adjustment.
The substance of the process relates to :
- the tool-set being used
- the technique being used
The tool-set being used relates to the choice by a creator to use his hands with paint brushes, charcoal, collage, or any other method in which the hands are the creators means of control. Along the path of societal evolution tools change and so in Late-Modernity the artist has for example experimented with computers and the use of algorithms directly generating images or transforming existing images. With computers the hands are replaced by the execution of algorithms.
I personally think that – the artist’s tool-set adapts to changing times – the tool-set does in no way change the historical nature of art. It can eventually change the form of a work of art but the subject-matter of the work remains the prerogative of the image maker. So all tool-set, in my mind, are fair game to create a work of art.
The technique being used relates to something that is very personal to the creator. It is his working method.
My personal approach to painting is automatism in the surrealist tradition. That means the following. I paint in 3 stages. The first stage is automatism and relates to the deposition of paint on a canvas without the interference of my mind. What ensues is generally a great chaos. The second stage then consists in generating order out of the chaos. That’s how the subject matter slowly emerges. The third stage is the adjustment of the combinations of forms, lines, and colors that I mentioned in the form of the process as it relates to the organic quality of the work.
In my personal approach to digital painting I order my computer to transform images of my paintings algorithmically. The images adorning this post are examples of such ‘digital transformations’.
Just as for the tool-set I think that the different methods of each artist are equally valid. Tool-set and techniques should be considered neutral. In other words I think that artworks should be judged for their form and subject matter. Point.
______________
NOTES
1 See“What is a tribe?” and “Tribal societal cohesion and visual arts”
2 See “Homo-Sapiens”
3 See “1. The nature and function of art over the last tens of thousands of years”
4 “4. Western Late-Modernity sows the seeds of After-Modernity”
See particularly :
- “4.1. Concepts in their historical context”
- “4.2. the financial and ideological spectacle”
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