As most of you know, I have been working on a project that involves other people's drawings. Two people have given me three drawings each. My criteria was, "Draw what comes to your mind. You will do one in five minutes, one in four minutes, and one in three minutes." They were quite accommodating. Their first reaction was, "I can draw... Whatever I want?" A few minutes went by as we were looking for a pen and paper. They said again, "Wait... So, anything?" I replied, "Yes, anything... A doodle of sorts if you would like."
1st Subject
2nd Subject-
3rd Subject (Myself)
As I drew, I noticed that they were doing small pictorial images whereas I was doing abstract doodles. I wondered at this point if I should have been more specific in the directions. I wanted to have drawings that were literally quite like looking at the clouds and seeing shapes and or pictorials pop out in my mind. This is how I was going to work my compositions. However as we know, things don't always come out like they are planned.
If I decided to present them with more specific criteria, it wouldn't have been what THEY wanted to draw. It would have been what I wanted them to draw. Wouldn't have this defeated the whole purpose of freely drawing what they wanted? Yes.
When trying to decide where I was going to take this while using what was given to me, I was curious to find out if maybe this was too close to art therapy. I didn't want this to be an art therapy session. If it was close to an art therapy session then I would need to find what exactly is an art therapy session. It might seem like I have an alter ego that is arguing and pushing against where I am going with this. The British Association of Art Therapists states, "Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses art media as the primary mode of communication." http://www.baat.org/art_therapy.html
Psychologist Dr. Margaret Naumburg, stated in 1958, "Its methods on releasing [unconscious material through] spontaneous art expression; it has its roots in the transference relation between patient and therapist, and on the encouragement of free association. It is therefore closely allied to psychoanalytic therapy." This is closely related to Freud's theories.
http://www.irvingstudios.com/natalism/art_therapy_overview.html
http://www.irvingstudios.com/natalism/art_therapy_overview.html
The drawings that have been presented to me are a form of free association. However, I would like to mention again that this is not an art therapy session while it seems that my information may lead to that. I am most certainly not qualified to determine what is in their subconscious. Freud called this free association, "This fundamental technical rule of analysis... We instruct the patient to put himself into a state of quiet reflecting self- observation and report to us whatever internal observations he is able to make taking care not to exclude any of them, whether on the ground that it is too disagreeable or too indiscreet to say, or that it is too unimportant or irrelevant, or that it is nonsensical and need not be said."
My subjects are not reporting to me an "internal observation," they are simply drawing. I am not about to ask them if they were drawing from the subconscious or if they planned it out. This requires analyzing themselves based on what they drew. I don't know if what they are drawing are a memory of an image they have seen, a dream or a certain motif they "doodle" when letting their mind glaze over.
I thought about taping the person drawing however I decided to throwing out the "tape the person drawing." This could be an intimidation factor. People change when they know they are being watched.
My subjects are not reporting to me an "internal observation," they are simply drawing. I am not about to ask them if they were drawing from the subconscious or if they planned it out. This requires analyzing themselves based on what they drew. I don't know if what they are drawing are a memory of an image they have seen, a dream or a certain motif they "doodle" when letting their mind glaze over.
I thought about taping the person drawing however I decided to throwing out the "tape the person drawing." This could be an intimidation factor. People change when they know they are being watched.
These are all branches that I could have grown out but it seemed as though it would be too cluttered. The defining purpose seems to be a sense of freedom while drawing. Isn't that what we all want? Freedom to express ourselves and in turn distinguish who we are in our own freedom. When communication under restriction of how or what can be communicated; a friction of tension can wear down the idea. It gets stripped down to a primal emotion... The emotion piles on top of an idea and the idea spews out distorted.
While these drawings are images separated by time and different assigned spaces to draw in, the idea is organized BY the assigned spaces to draw in. So how do I organize the composition? How do I possibly express what they were drawing with my understanding of WHAT they were drawing? If I wasn't a visual person, would I be able to distinguish what they were drawing? If I was a two year old child with a mind fresh, of course not. A distorted spew.
Throughout the lifetime of a person, thousands of images are embedded in the brain. Some neurologists and even an old professor of mine believed that dreams are made of overlapping memories and images distorted by time. While it seems I could gain inspiration from surrealism, that is not my intention. This leads me to a certain point in my work where I choose to set up my composition from a familiar place of cubism.
While these drawings are images separated by time and different assigned spaces to draw in, the idea is organized BY the assigned spaces to draw in. So how do I organize the composition? How do I possibly express what they were drawing with my understanding of WHAT they were drawing? If I wasn't a visual person, would I be able to distinguish what they were drawing? If I was a two year old child with a mind fresh, of course not. A distorted spew.
Throughout the lifetime of a person, thousands of images are embedded in the brain. Some neurologists and even an old professor of mine believed that dreams are made of overlapping memories and images distorted by time. While it seems I could gain inspiration from surrealism, that is not my intention. This leads me to a certain point in my work where I choose to set up my composition from a familiar place of cubism.
This is the latest work that I have done. It is a study to help me figure out my way through the labrinth of this project.
I have worked with cubism before. It was the first time that I could let go in a composition without getting so wrapped up in technicalities. So, therefore, I will go into a small discussion about cubism...
Cubism's arrival was heralded by Pablo Picasso who lived in an artist's colony called le Bateau Lavour ("the laundry barge.") His partner in crime (and neighbor) through this movement was Georges Braque. Although, Cezanne, traveling to different points around a mountain has also been considered the foundation of Cubism. But the theory stems and becomes more clear through Picasso and Braque. Leonard Shlain from Art and Physics states, "In Cubist painting, solid, apprehensible reality, located in space and fixed in time, crumbled; and like Humpty Dumpty, its pieces could not be reassembled. Objects fractured into visual fragments then were rearranged so that the viewer would not have to move through space in an allotted period of time in order to view them in sequence.... These chopped-up reflective surfaces of objects represented the maya of experience, which Picasso and Braque had cleverly rearranged to persuade the viewer that if he could see all facets of an object at once, he was seeing space as all here."
The Theory of Relativity was a major move here in the game of Cubism. "Einsteins Special Theory of Relativity" shook up the world of physics. Just remember these three words; time, space, and motion. It was assumed that time was constant (time is the fourth dimension.) However under the the understanding of Theory of Relativity, It isn't time, it is the speed of light that is constant. Take a look at this video that explains it in quickly.
Cubism's arrival was heralded by Pablo Picasso who lived in an artist's colony called le Bateau Lavour ("the laundry barge.") His partner in crime (and neighbor) through this movement was Georges Braque. Although, Cezanne, traveling to different points around a mountain has also been considered the foundation of Cubism. But the theory stems and becomes more clear through Picasso and Braque. Leonard Shlain from Art and Physics states, "In Cubist painting, solid, apprehensible reality, located in space and fixed in time, crumbled; and like Humpty Dumpty, its pieces could not be reassembled. Objects fractured into visual fragments then were rearranged so that the viewer would not have to move through space in an allotted period of time in order to view them in sequence.... These chopped-up reflective surfaces of objects represented the maya of experience, which Picasso and Braque had cleverly rearranged to persuade the viewer that if he could see all facets of an object at once, he was seeing space as all here."
The Theory of Relativity was a major move here in the game of Cubism. "Einsteins Special Theory of Relativity" shook up the world of physics. Just remember these three words; time, space, and motion. It was assumed that time was constant (time is the fourth dimension.) However under the the understanding of Theory of Relativity, It isn't time, it is the speed of light that is constant. Take a look at this video that explains it in quickly.
Einsteins Theory of Special Relativity in 2 minutes, 2007,
The Cubists wanted to show a way to represent this idea. (By the way, Einstein completely disagreed with Cubists representations of space and time.) My own previous works of practices in Cubism were from three different points of view. The still life was placed int the center of the room and I physically walked around the room counter clockwise and stopped in different places (and different distances from the still life.) Shlain stated, "According to Cubists, the world did not need to be processed in sequence."
The drawings that I have obtained from my subjects were at different times in different time segments. The key here is to not look at what came before or what came after. It is to understand that the images they gave me came out of their brains yet was inside at the same time yet was broken down into three different images. They were broken into different images because I requested it. When I combine these images in a composition, it is to represent them simultaneous view. When I paint a sheer, translucent layer of a portrait, I will bring the subjects BACK into the painting.
For example, Shlain provides a perfect example citing Buddism, "When a gentle wind crinkles a pool's still surface, the reflections on it are broken into a shimmering random light show. The world as seen reflected on that surface is a fractured jumble of multifaceted images. The viewer loses her way in the complexities of the reflection, and her confusion distracts her from trying to see what is within the pool. It is only when the wind quiets and the pool becomes still again that it is possible to discern what lies beneath the surface. Then the viewer is no longer distracted by the show on the water and may at last see what lies in the water. By chopping space and time into little chips, Cubism exaggerates the ruffled appearances of reality's surface as wind does on the water, but at the same time it forces us to think about what is beyond, behind, and within the surface of the pool."
My final step will be a portrait that is going to be translucent. This is not because I read Shlain's Buddism concept (I read this part today) but simply because I want to distract the audience with a portrait. I want them to see a reflection of a ghostly subject. The pictorial images that appear to the subjects are spews of distortion and it is "beyond, behind and within."
The drawings that I have obtained from my subjects were at different times in different time segments. The key here is to not look at what came before or what came after. It is to understand that the images they gave me came out of their brains yet was inside at the same time yet was broken down into three different images. They were broken into different images because I requested it. When I combine these images in a composition, it is to represent them simultaneous view. When I paint a sheer, translucent layer of a portrait, I will bring the subjects BACK into the painting.
For example, Shlain provides a perfect example citing Buddism, "When a gentle wind crinkles a pool's still surface, the reflections on it are broken into a shimmering random light show. The world as seen reflected on that surface is a fractured jumble of multifaceted images. The viewer loses her way in the complexities of the reflection, and her confusion distracts her from trying to see what is within the pool. It is only when the wind quiets and the pool becomes still again that it is possible to discern what lies beneath the surface. Then the viewer is no longer distracted by the show on the water and may at last see what lies in the water. By chopping space and time into little chips, Cubism exaggerates the ruffled appearances of reality's surface as wind does on the water, but at the same time it forces us to think about what is beyond, behind, and within the surface of the pool."
My final step will be a portrait that is going to be translucent. This is not because I read Shlain's Buddism concept (I read this part today) but simply because I want to distract the audience with a portrait. I want them to see a reflection of a ghostly subject. The pictorial images that appear to the subjects are spews of distortion and it is "beyond, behind and within."
Time, space, and motion are the assumed prerequisite for art, which I was discussing in the post on Hiraki Sawa's work. You should take Charles Collins course on the art of India which illustrates the perception of mysticism on art and you should check out the course on the philosophy of art and aesthetics, which really puts Einstein's theory of relativity into an aesthetic context. I wouldn't worry about your project paralleling an art therapy session. At the same time, you are on the right track in recognizing that there is a lot more going on when someone is creative than the simple end result. The circumstance that results in a work of art is undefinable, which makes the conversation about art so curious.
ReplyDeleteAshley, thank you for the advice for Charles Collins course on the art of India. I will check out my advising sheet and see what is available. I actually have another book waiting for me, "The Tao of Physics," which I am VERY excited about. I cannot wait to find more parallels to the theories I've been working on.
DeleteThe discussion about connections between science and art is an interesting one. There have been many who have hoped they would come together more. C.P. Snow, a writer, in some 1959 lectures called The Two Cultures, even thought we couldn't really solve many of life's biggest problems unless this happened. Many years later he concluded that they were drifting even further apart. Here is an interesting article from just a few years ago encouraging that connection again as a way to save science. http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_future_of_science_is_art/P7/
ReplyDeleteThank you for both of the writing pieces. I haven't yet found the lectures called The Two Cultures but I am going to work on it.
DeleteI would hope that there would be a way for science and art to come together in a cohesive manner. The article was sublime and interesting as all get out. The article does mention C.P. Snow to which he mentioned a "third" culture that would "close the 'communications gap' between scientists and artists." My interest was particularly piqued when said, "If we are serious about unifying human knowledge, then we’ll need to create a new movement that coexists with the third culture but that deliberately trespasses on our cultural boundaries and seeks to create relationships between the arts and the sciences." This would mean creating something beyond myself. Not something that happens intentionially but rather something happens because it happens. But a person always needs to shove that in the right direction right?
What if we could get science to learn about art and art to learn about science. Artists are too far from the connection of physics or mathmatics. Which can make sense considering artist use more of the right hemisphere in their brain. The right side of the brain tends to use an intuitive methods, searching out patterns in a fluid manner. The left side tends to be very rational while seeking out established information with logical methods. Ever heard, "Artists are bad at math." Yes sir... I'm one of them.
Einsteins Theory of Relativity briefly emerged in art history. What if the Fibonacci Series, Golden Ratio, Musical Compositions could be combined? Sure psychology has been inserted into art as a form of expression. How is science expressed beyond the mathmatical component that geometry and art are combined? So... Perhaps take the advice of Jonah Lehrer in his discussion of a fourth culture. " The premise of this movement—perhaps a fourth culture—is that neither culture can exist by itself. Its goal will be to cultivate a positive feedback loop, in which works of art lead to new scientific experiments, which lead to new works of art and so on." Keep experimenting I suppose.