Monday, September 24, 2007

Zippetty doo dah

A poem of songs sequenced off ITunes shuffle:

Life in a glasshouse first meditation on the purpose I think it could work, marilyn bulletproof I wish I was an owl with knees bluing gamelan part 2 JS Bach: Cello Suite #1 in G BWV 1007 – 1. Prelude songbird lucky beatam me dicent magnificat samurai sword autumn leaves slow moves track 15 stellar hints basin street white light of go to sleep sad sexy killer cars pyramid song six days at the bottom of the



Shantideva and Barnett Newman (with his "Zips") approached the same idea:

The “I” possible in relation to the “you”…The very word “I” which so poignantly hints at that elusive sense of what is most irreducibly particular to a person, only makes sense as part of a language that includes “you,” “him,” “her,” “us,” and them.” an empty self turns out to be a relational self.

A passage in Stephen Batchelor's Verses from the Center:

I should dispel the pain of others
because it hurts like my own
And I should be good to them
Because they feel just as I do.
When both they and I
Are the same in wanting joy
And not desiring pain,
What is so special about me?


I wonder how to translate this passage visually or instrumentally.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

While I support that idea that human beings have an inherent desire to experience joy and be free from pain, I don't believe that those desires make humanity united in their pursuit. The question posed at the end is, "what makes me so special?" I ask, then, "how do common desires place a person within a collective humanity?" Again, I believe it to be true that people gravitate toward joy and want to abstain from harm - to themselves or to others. But are those ends necessarily the same to each person? Is it not a person's own subjectivity that translates that 'joy' or that 'freedom from harm' into a personal, individual context?

Take, for example, a man in a Russian prison, jailed for speaking out against an autocratic regime. He is interrogated, and he is tortured mercilessly. He ardently desires to be free of his pain, and perhaps he will even feel a bit of comraderie with his fellow dissidents, but is this the same 'freedom from pain' that a teenager feels half a world away, as he drowns himself in sad music to lament the end of a relationship? Or with joy, assume there exists an artist that strives to push into new and unheard of mediums, dreaming of sharing that work with an ever-increasing audience. Is that truly the same joy as the happiness an old man feels as he sits down on his favorite park bench, to feed bits of bread to his pigeon companions and disappear into his own private world?

While I do agree with the author that empathy among human beings is in our nature, and that we do reach for goals with a common end, I disagree with his final existential question. I believe that each human being, through a combination of influences and experiences, forms his own unique interpretation of his world and the priorities he will subsequently set. It is through this prism that a person defines his or her own 'joy' and 'pain', and decides how best to achieve or avoid them. A beautiful passage, but one that I feel does not adequately address the capacity of the individual or the power one mind has in shaping its own reality.

But that's just the opinion of one old man.

... said...

There exists psychological torture that doesn't carry an oppressive authority. Say you witness a suicide and have this image of a light blue tarp covering the corpse embedded into your mind. Imagine every time you see that color, it gives you the shivers and people around you call you crazy because from their perspective, you appear to be shivering at a color and having random emotional breakdowns. And then imagine certain people around you start shoving the color into your face, knowing that it causes you distress and wanting to find out why you become distressed. Wouldn't you prefer to have an actual definitive source for your pain, someone who outwardly oppresses you so that at least you can form a camraderie with people who undergo similar oppression?

New and unheard of mediums, at this point, so much has already been seen and done that unless you make a gigantic spectacle of yourself or your work, it's not going to amaze anyone. And by the time you perform the conceptual equivalent of running naked through the streets howling I AM ART you realize that your mind is more absorbed with doing something "new and unheard of" rather than appreciating an art process.

I sometimes feel as if the drive to "be different" actually causes more suffering. It's like being tarred and feathered by societal expectations. Except the artist purchases his/her own tar and her/his own feathers and does it to him/herself. I think the artist's role deserves more dignity than that. I came across a performance art in Seoul Station where a man encased himself in a glass case allowing people to scrawl on it with two videos, one from inside and one from outside for over 24 hours. He endured, he had a compelling setup, the concept was thought provoking, socially and politically relevant. However, while he was there, the majority of the people there either A) Gathered around the stupid tv drama broadcast on the television screen ten feet from him or B) Muttered something to the lines of "what a freak," "art is bullshit," "leave him alone, he's out of his mind" or C) Looked at it, scribbled something inane with a sharpie pen, and walked on, D) Just walked by faster averting their eyes pretending they never saw the crazy guy in the plexiglass case or E) Stood right in front of it, staring with a myriad of responses from slack-jawed awe to condescending smirk. So this man pretty much ended up experiencing the self-made torture of being confined in a 6 by 3 foot space for 24-48 hours out of an empathetic response to political conditions and his suffering was vastly underappreciated. He'd probably provoke the same amount of questions and ignorance if he sat down on a park bench and fed scraps of conceptual art to the pigeons.

Why do you call the question existential? I admit I've been pouring so many buckets full of plastic wrappers labeled Nihilism and Postmodernism over my head that I'm treading generalizations and have thus lost touch with the actual concept of existentialism. So if I offend you by saying I think that existential finality is a ticklish oxymoron, please chalk it up to the fact that I have more existentialism smeared on my back than on my intellect.

I think most people act out of habit subconsciously influenced by experiences and that most of us don't really have clear cut perceptions, even if we think we do. Joy and pain is not absolute. If, for example, you never had sex, how would you gauge physical joy? If you were born and raised in SoCal and never experienced a snowy day, you'd have no idea what a snowy day feels like. If we have preset definitions of joy or pain, can a goal exist relative to the joy or pain in the process towards an understanding of joy or pain? Sorry, that sounds soph[ist or omor]ic.

What does being in the same boat have to do with seeing differently?

I C.