Organic Art Manifesto

I just published the first version of my "Organic Art Manifesto". Its present form is a customization in book form of my last 7 blog posts titled "Organic art  =  the patterns of life" . Later I'll further edit the text. In the meantime I would be grateful to anyone for any suggestions or critiques. Please use the comment section or the mail-form.

Click on image to read or download the PDF (free)

Organic art = the patterns of life (7)

6.   organic art as answer in the context of Late-Modernity

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.

Organic art = the patterns of life (6)

5.  After-Modernity and the prospects of an artistic awakening

Over the last 50 years a great convergence has slowly been taking place, between – the crisis of the governance-world – and the multitude side-effects of Modernity, that is evolving into a drastically new living environment.

This convergence will result in a radical drop of the world population and life will be forced to re-organize locally in small groups surviving under the reign of necessity. Their most vital priority will be the reproduction of their societies over the long haul and to ensure this the minds will be glued by new foundational narratives grounded in myths fixing the memory of what caused the fall of Modernity.

Modern knowledge will rapidly be forgotten and visual signs will thus become the vehicle of choice to share knowledge with all. That’s how the historical nature of art returns with a vengeance … 

Organic art = the patterns of life (5)

4.  Western Late-Modernity sows the seeds of After-Modernity

Long ago it downed on me that there is no way to untangle the arts from societal evolution and its economic, political or geo-political aspects. All are intertwined and their interconnections are what creates the reality of what happens in our present societies.

Understanding our present implies that we get a handle on the evolution of these interconnections from the past, to the present, to the future.

Only when we understand our present can we feel the ways of our species in the future and then we adapt our being accordingly in the present …

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Organic art = the patterns of life (4)

3.  In the 20th century the 3rd world was forced to adopt Modernity in order to survive

For the last 40 years I had the great chance of being a close witness of the Chinese story and I observed that to ensure the survival of their nation the Chinese, in a first move, largely copied Western Modernity.

With the benefit of hindsight it becomes evident that a second move down the road will enable them to walk their own national way into the future. There is no better guide than the artworld to understand how the country is generating its own way by forcing the integration of Modernity inside Chinese Traditional Culture.

And so under the sheer weight of population numbers China is quietly shedding Modernity’s old Western skin...

Organic art = the patterns of life (3)

2.   how did Modernity emerge in Europe

Why is understanding the emergence of Modernity so important ? Well, in order to survive in the 20th century, all countries on earth were forced to convert to the quasi-worldview of Modernity and to the reason that is at work within capital. What ensued was a radical departure from the past that thoroughly impacted the ways of thinking and the behaviors of the individuals in all third-world nations. And this resulted in a blow-back of monumental proportion on their worldviews, culture, art, and societal governance.

I observed first hand how – the art world in Beijing during the eighties was mesmerized to ape Western productions, rock and punk music, the modernist avant-garde painting, – and how this resulted in three decades of sheer insanity. Things have certainly evolved since then but the blow-back resulting from aping the first world has still not been completely digested...

Having said that the fact of the matter is that the blow-back on the 3rd world is nothing compared to the chaos that was unleashed on the first world.

Today we come to suspect that Modernity and capitalism have cursed humanity. And nothing could liberate us more thoroughly from this curse than by gaining a clear comprehension of why and how Modernity emerged in Western Europe in the first place and how things then evolved toward Late-Modernity.

Organic art = the patterns of life (2)

1. The nature and function of art over the last tens of thousands of years


In my last article I wrote “ Life is a rare gift in the universe but our power societies, and more particularly the quasi-worldview of Modernity, lost touch with this evidence. Now that we start to grasp the fact that this gift could be taken away we come to appreciate that it is the most precious thing we ever had. ”

Since the principle of life is the most important thing we ever had would it not be logical to derive all our ideas and actions about how to live from this principle ?

The first question that arises is then ‘what is life? ‘.

Organic Art = the patterns of life (1)

I terminated the digital variations of painting 1-03 of the "grand project".

Here follow some samples and some initial commentaries.


Check the entire collection of all 256 digital paintings here.

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What’s going on here ? (6)

3. determinant factors driving the ‘governance-world’

Present post:

- Societal atomization
- Creeping totalitarianism
- Western illusions
- The West has no clue about China's strategy
- The West is setting itself up for a rude awakening
- The empire loses its clients

My next post

... I'm taking 2 months off ...
The next post in this series will appear on  Friday 2019-09-06:
4. the grand convergence of all the side-effects of Modernity
__________

What’s going on here ? (5)

2. the cultural context forces human thinking and actions

The present post covers:

-  chapter 2.3.   Culture
-  chapter 2.4.  Collision of our cultural context with societal collapse

Next week’s post will cover:

-  chapter 3. determinant factors driving the ‘governance-world’

What’s going on here ? (4)

2. the cultural context forces human thinking and actions


The present post covers:

-  chapter 2.2. Societal worldviews


Next week’s post will cover:

-  chapter 2.3. Culture

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What’s going on here ? (3)

2. the cultural context forces human thinking and actions

The present post covers:

-  the introduction of this part 2

-  and its first chapter 2.1. Axioms of civilizations.

Next week’s post will cover:

-  chapter 2.2. Societal worldviews 
-  chapter 2.3. Culture 
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What’s going on here ? (2)

1. Pragmatism versus ideology

I’m foremost a thinker and a painter And I want to make clear from the get go that painting does not happen in a void. You certainly withdraw to a certain extent from the societal noise. But the societal noise is never far away and it somehow always finds a way to creep back into your mind. So the mind is never really totally detached from what is going on in human affairs. And so, whatever the views of the artist about what art is all about, the fact of the matter is that the act of painting itself can’t avoid to be tainted by what is going on around the image maker. In other words art is not a think on itself. Art is an integral part of societal life. And once this idea is firmly ingrained in the mind “art for art’s sake” appears for what it truly is: an aberration.

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What’s going on here ? (1)

The disorder in the world of human affairs has been rapidly accelerating since the publishing of my book “A growing disconnect between East & West”.

At the time I concluded with the following observations:

All 256 digital variations of 1-02 are now online

The complete gallery, with all 256 digital variations of painting 1-02  from "the grand project", is now available here.