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Tag: art

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    splitting your soul to survive

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    1–2 minutes

    Freud observes that the invention of the “soul” is an attempt to live forever: we declare an unseen part of ourselves everlasting.

    He compares the splitting of the self into some intangible “other” (it is us, but it’s not all of us, but it’s also not fully known to us) as drawing from the tradition of the spirit animal, or the shadow.

    The attempt to defy death leads us to partner and externalize a vital component of ourselves.

    In Harry Potter the Horcrux Voldemort uses is a soul-fragment reliquary, but its existence outside of his body is a perversion. The soul must remain in the vessel of the body.

    Conversely, in His Dark Materials each child has a natural external other, a daemon as embodied reflection or external soul partner.

    Leaving fiction, we have the literal and metaphorical shadow, which operates as an alternate self. It is attached but can be relegated to being separate; an oddly unknown dark mirror that is present when we are in the light.

    When the shadow self acts we are aghast, as if an external entity has momentarily triumphed and must be relegated outside once again. So, we demote a portion of our soul to live underneath us, behind us, attached to us but ignored so that we maintain interior purity.

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    This force crushing me

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    1–2 minutes

    When confronted with daily pressure, some retreat into and gain assurance from the ideological or transcendent, but we must face up to the certainties. Which includes our own absurdity and contrivance to escape reality.

    “Between history and the eternal I have chosen history because I like certainties. Of it, at least, I am certain, and how can I deny this force crushing me?” Albert Camus

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    social media is performative, it is anti-social

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    1–2 minutes

    Social media is not social: it is performative. It is a theater (platform) to entertain an audience.

    Social media is (arguably) anti-social because it encourages politics and morality plays.

    (first sentence from Naval)

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    Giving yourself completely

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    1–2 minutes

    When someone says they "gave their whole life," it is obvious hyperbole.

    They received much in return, even if it was painful negation they were seeking. More pointedly, in their phrasing, they reveal the narcissistic tactic of martyrdom.

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    Art reveals the lie and saves us from the real.

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    1–2 minutes

    Picasso says, “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.”

    Nietzsche says, “we have art in order not to die of the truth.” Or, the creative act saves us from the truth (reality).

    In one view, the world is hidden and must be revealed through the “lie of art.”
    On the other, the world’s reality of brutality requires transcendent imagining.

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    Tech progress as fragility by design

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    1–2 minutes

    A car that uses computers and plastics to achieve more miles per gallon but only lasts ten years, and can only be repaired by highly specialized technicians, has a higher overall cost than its purported savings.

    There are still VW Beetles running nearly 100 years after production. The cost of making an object one time (rather than ten objects), which can be repaired by a neighbor with a bit of savvy, has proven more cost-effective, human-empowering, and environmentally beneficial than all of our refined tweaking and regulations.

    Our habit of promoting "advancement" or "progress" robs the populace of agency. We have created a society where we outsource problems and purchase for shallow novelty: by design, these traits create fragility through dependence.

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    symbolic power: progress as betrayal

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    1–2 minutes

    Real power wanes when people shift into the symbolic.

    For instance, as England ceased to be a global power, the monarchy became even more important, yet the country and monarchy had less power as reverence increased.

    Similarly Japan, after losing World War II, doubles down on the (symbolic) moral imperatives as unique signifiers when real power lead to disaster.

    The danger is when symbolic power becomes reified into privileged national nostalgia it locks down the citizenry so that no real change is possible: to progress is to betray.

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    arts and artificial intelligence

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    1–2 minutes

    Art is a subset of our culture, reacting to new technological innovations, ideas, and politico-historical moments.

    To decide to protect art from technology, (such as AI or NFT) is not in the spirit of art, nor the function of art: property (and protection of) is the realm of copyright and commerce.

    Arguably, art can never be commerce. Art should react, not sequester.

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    Failure and Finishing

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    1–2 minutes

    An analogy to life through art: the path to completion is always more effort, more thinking, more networking, and, of course, more rebuilding and refinement of the object and practice. And yet sometimes you simply fail, and the unfinished piece is the archive of failure.

    There is a moment that tells you this process/object/relationship can never be salvaged, and yet some of the greatest works are when you irrationally push through.

    Yet, this is also a recipe for burnout.

    Distinguishing between the two is the art.
    True failure is not recognizing when failure is inevitable.

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    Absurdity is willful defiance

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    1–2 minutes

    The absurd is when your aim does not match your strength or ability, according to Albert Camus.
    To charge a wall armed only with anger is absurd.

    To expect success while ignoring reality is absurd in direct proportion to the scale of your goals. A situation becomes absurd when the odds are infinitesimal, yet the individual persists.

    This defiance against reality is equal parts hopeful and bravery, yet also insanity.