ART BLENDING.

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—Objective—

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This Art Blending text poetically bursts bubbles. The text aims to map across several conceptually bordered-off forms of art, media and technology by poetically[1] analyzing social, historical and philosophical definitions and “-isms.”

 Part 1 shall aim to initiate an (in)finite debate on how to artistically make use of the fluidities found beyond social one-dimensionality[2], and into a more inter-disciplinary mode of thought, across technology by intermingling available or even fictional media (i.e. those found in science fictional storytelling). The expressions coming from the (cited) author(s) shall have their roots in soft- or hard sciences but shall ultimately be artistic and specifically poetic or metaphoric in nature or application. Indeed, I shall be crossing definitions metaphorically.

 The exchanges within the first part of this narrative shall hint of fixed definitions yet shall invite participants (i.e. they who go beyond readership or passive listening) to go in-between these preconceived definitions by means of metaphors. The already overused and hyped concepts such as free association, analogy, transcoding, convergence culture, transmedia narrative, the interdisciplinary, the multi-sensory, fuzziness (as in: degrees of applicability and not simply true or false), the immersive, the interactive and the virtual shall not be shunned away from, shall be used or shall be hinted of. 

 The soft academic aim is to open or be reminded of intellectual venues towards an enriched artistic and design praxis. I am convinced that to write/talk contextually about art/design during one moment does not negate but rather enrich a hands-on and pragmatic approach to art/design at another moment in spacetime. The two, theory and praxis, only seem like polar opposites in the minds of those who will it. In fact, they belong to one and the same category. Contemplation, talk and artistic/design output are similar in that they imply collections of media for innovative expressions, processes and results. The following output shall be working towards new mental platforms and systems for (micro-) innovative expressions applicable within the participant’s (i.e. student’s/artist’s/designer’s) future art and design output. This is what shall be defined here as ‘thoughts-to-actions’.

 This narrative shall open with a poetic view on thoughts-to-actions. Following, in part 2, these views will be taken to illustrate them further through 5 areas:

1.  An area poetically interpreting a socio-political spectrum for artistic purposes; Socially Fluid Poetry.
2. A short reminder of conscious space as an area to the artistic concepts of negative space and positive space; Fluid Spaces.
3. An area for artistic application beyond strict confinements of copyright law; an in-between to ownership; Fluid Culture.
4. an area of artistic processes mixing, cutting and pasting media besides their linear techno-centric application; Fluid Media.
5. An area of functional and aesthetic merger of media and technologies within urban concepts leading towards an interdisciplinary multi-sensorial and participatory praxis; Fluid Urbanism.

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PART 1

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—Poetic Introduction—

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I do not, I act not

therefor I am by not being

However…

I lie therefor I certainly am

I form therefor I actually decay

I decay therefor I fluidly form

I am therefor I truthfully lie

 —animasuri’11—[3]

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—Poetic Goals—

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During the development of this text (yet, preferably: during this invitation for debate) the intentions or potentials to get across are those of:

1. transitional flexibility across various socio-cultural matrices,[4]
2. an openness towards an in-between cultural state (in flux),
3. a cross-media[5] and transmedia[6] consciousness,
4. a fluidity across (mental and physical) spaces (urban or other),
5. a capacity to see simplicity in complexity and complexity in simplicity,
6. a willingness to read what is not written and imagine what is not thought.
7. summarized, this text (as an invitation for debate) might unveil an infinite search for fluidity crossing and intertwining media, artistic form, creative tools, technology and socio-cultural values and memes.
8. and… the ability to go further than our daily yet useful common-senses and put the previous points as well as following poetics into one’s own version of a fictional image: an empathic capability to imagine one-self as an inter-galactic alien looking from outer-space upon the human endeavor providing insights on how the variations (in usage, in interpretation, in perception, in definition, in action, ….) seem to intertwine, unravel  and intertwine again (as it is seen from a mental distance).

As suggested, in the first part, fluidity shall be covered on a more abstract level. It shall cover some tools that aim to aid one (as individual or as community) to consider praxis based on the offered areas in part 2.

In part 1 one can sense fluidity from large to small, from part to whole from one object to a different one and back again. The text will invite one to travel across the universe, into clouds, drops and other metaphors. In part 2 and as mentioned in the objectives above one can focus such fluidity within 5 daily life areas that in a more or lesser degree concern an artist / designer.

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—A Metaphoric Macro Contextualization—

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The universe is told to be about 14 billion years old (give or take a billion here or there). The universe has no nationality, no name. It has no worries about what to design on any drawing board; or so, for now, I want to believe.

Darkly shaded by this overwhelming insight I juxtapose that I myself am but 39 years old, I think… And sometimes, because I choose to, I am 67 years. This is not even close to 14 billion years. I am not bothered too much by age difference, nor by my age fluidity, or its approximation or miscalculation. Compared to the universe or to the billion or two years our leading scientists might be wrong about the universe’s age makes my erroneous idiosyncratic existence an acceptable deviation. So, I feel it’s OK to be 38 and sometimes 67, or even, on occasion, to claim to be 9 years old. Some of my acquaintances would argue age is of importance. I argue it is fluid. If a universe can, if scientists can, well, if Andy Warhol could juggle with age, so can I. It’s but age.

Multiverses. Artwork by Silver Spoon dated October 1, 2011.  Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Multiverse.png on December 5, 2011 artwork by Silver Spoon dated October 1, 2011

That stated, beyond the universe’s age and the deviations resulting from our dating-processes, some of us explore complexity beyond the universe. Some of these scientists in Quantum Mechanics also formulate the possibility of infinite multiverses or meta-verses; a universe bubble upon a universe bubble upon universe bubbles, ad infinitum. Some of these universes supposedly are very different from one another whereas others would be identical to each other. This is space within which some of us believe to live. It is the infinite context within which our verbal and social contexts become, are sustained, peak, modulate and decay.

How does this sublime magnificence apply to us here today? Willingly or unwillingly, it very much so applies. Let me explore this further.

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—A Metaphoric Micro Contextualization—

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Here and now, you and I might feel stuck in our small perceptions interpreted by our convictions of our own understandable importance or of our role models’ imagined grandeur. You and I might feel stuck in our one-dimensional 4D one-liners, in our singular doubt on what to paint, sculpt or design next. We might be stuck in our monolithic fear to lose our one-and-only identity or see our unified social-status fall apart. This we do, impose or undergo for the seventy-five years or so each one of us roams this one planet in this one universe where some seem to believe in the importance of one dream in one world. These we do all the while the universe keeps expanding and while universe-bubbles are said to be endlessly available. I’ll assume a majority of us senses a certain degree of discrepancy here.

To realize such or similar discrepancy is of use to get access to a different consciousness compared to a consciousness lacking such comparative access. It offers a possibility to elegantly link the micro-concepts with our (however theoretical or imagined) contextual macro-concepts or macro-conditions. From this ability, one might be enabled to enter into processes differently, consequentially offering innovative results. For those who do not see it clearly, the discrepancy can be represented as follows:

Within this vast multidimensional Quantum Theoretical multiverse we happen to try and be psychologically stuck in our emotional clinging on to our small tangible riches, our limited understanding of our immediate surrounding, and our inadequate expression partly or largely defined by influences beyond it. In this sense, we are ‘irrationally rational’; i.e. what we do sometimes only makes rational sense if it is seen from within the ignored (thus blinded) oddity of our self-perceived statically defined unfaltering order. We are each —one day more then the next— obsessive-compulsively hanging on to our tunnel-viewed controls, networks and the assigned definitions within these. We define and want to be defined. Paradoxically we are unable to absolutely define and wish to escape those definitions that are forcing a singular identifiable form onto us. This does not have to depress one, it can intellectually and artistically liberate and excite one! Why is that, and for you who are wondering what I am rambling about, how does that further apply to the arts and to design?

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—Micro to Macro & Macro to Micro Fluidity—

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Each of us is doing our one, or perhaps an ironic “three point seventy six” major things during our lifetimes. Such or similar seeming simplicity and seeming limit is in fact more profound than simply being disappointing or beautiful. As a collection of our entire individual acts combined across time and space, this individually perceived simplicity and limit is rather ‘sublime’ in all its collective beauty, ugliness and fearfulness.[7] Such is surface of form. Such actions form the texture of each of our individual lives. Though, across that it can imply vast inter-personal complexity. Yet we seem to wish or even feel the need to hold on to such isolating achievements, tunneled perceptions, singular definitions and superior identities of ourselves, of our surroundings and of the artistic or other work we do. Simultaneously, above and beyond, across and throughout our selves, the multi-dimensionality in these meta-verses are infinite and undoubtedly infinitely rich in their complexity. This type of tension offers a possibility to link with the arts: Can we find or develop an overarching a shift in consciousness supported by existing processes available to those who seek them[8] that maximizes, ever so slightly, the mental access and give insights into the potential (fantasy of) identities and any of their undeveloped perceptions as well as of possible and latent definitions intermingled within these; even if we were only to focus on those infinities within human artistic endeavors? Can one simultaneously anticipate possible (dis-) advantage of engaging in these?

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—Solidity: Identification as Absolute Definition—

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As a silly example of such creatively crossing of thought when talking about identity and its implied fixating definitions, for instance when relating age and nationality, one could ask the following questions:

1. how many Chinese, younger than 10, are alive in this world today? I have no idea. I assume many are. I do know this, today I have lived in China for more than 10 years…
2. what am I? Am I more or less “Chinese” than any younger than 9-year-old Chinese?
3. Which artistic form or stories could come from this seemingly odd crossing of facts?
4. Should one care?
5. Should one worry it is too much a schizophrenic or unsettling thought to even consider let alone share here in playfulness with you?

Or, is there nothing to worry about and can one discover the intertwining of previously unrelated definitions as moving ginger roots of our minds bending and crossing beneath its intellectual surface, sprouting shoots at seemingly random locations?

The Painting/ Collage Das Undbild, 1919 (“The And-Picture”) Source: Kurt Schwitters, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1994. Retrieved on December 25, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DasUndbild.jpg

Definitions, identities and roles are useful, to an extent. They seem inexplicably essential to many, if not most of us. They tend to fixate us all; or so we are made to believe (by others and by ourselves). The degree of fixation can be altered. As Damian Sutton in his 2008 book Deleuze Reframed describes:

“Identity is always in motion, no matter how rooted it seems or how fixed. Not only that, but all identifications are in motion, since any fixed state of an object is merely a stage of apparent rest before another change.” (Sutton, 2008, p 61)[9]

Sutton continues by giving the reader a clear example of identity in flux:

“If we pick up a coffee mug and look at it, we can have no doubt that it is a fixed object in time and space. It is, in fact, fixed to the extent of being brittle. It will smash if we drop it, and its ‘essential’ identity would be at an end. What we are really looking at, however, is a moment (no matter how long) of apparent rest in the life of its molecules and atoms. It was once wet clay, formed and shaped, glazed and fired under pressure. It continues to change, cracks and fissures forming on its surface, until we break it, when it will be tossed aside as rubbish, returning it to the earth. This ‘fixed’ object in space is also a fixed object in time… only inasmuch as we isolate it in our minds from the continual change of the universe.” (Sutton, 2008, p 61. Bold format added.)[10]

Yet, if unveiled, if unearthed, if made conscious, if put in a different shadow and light, if poetically approached, these categorizations[11] (such as definitions are) can be seen as simple clouds passing by. Yes, they—as any concept or following ideas—are as clouds in transit across our minds. If we forget, ignore or worse, dismiss their transitional and transforming attributes—two of their profoundly important features–each cloud runs the risk of getting stuck in, what I label as an ‘idea-nook’ we ourselves created in our mind. If such cloud floats into a nook it gets stuck there. At the point of getting stuck such an idea-cloud runs the risk to claim superiority and to claim fixed truth that can no longer be reshaped nor verified. The stuck cloud could condensate,[12] roll drops along the sides of its idea-nook, spread into various other concepts and become even more engrained within our mental processes and their resulting ideas and its outputs (i.e. work, art work, design work, etc).

One truth, seen from the field of Atmospheric Physics, is that no one cloud has superiority or claims truth in an absolute sense. They are there, only defined as something close to “condensed water vapor” as part of the vague idea of ‘air’ being floated above the ground, appropriated[13] and recycled across spacetime. Then they are not there; and yet they are there.

For all we know, that one water drop inside that one cloud could have been Shakespeare’s spit before it became tomorrow’s drop of rain. Yes, poetically, these clouds are so much more. Abstractly, similar as all combined clouds across spacetime, each of our minds can swirl across, be in transit at times, struggle and intertwine while peacefully being at ease simultaneously with the poetry and the physics of clouds or other, without losing track of our slightly more pressing daily processes and targets. Surely, the pragmatics and utilitarian features of the now and its associated strategies, targets and results are not dismissed because of any poetic considerations. These two can co-exist, are intertwined and perhaps, to some, are hardly distinguishable yet practically incorporated in their existence and interactions.

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—Poetically Deconstructing Demarcations—

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Of course, remain aware, here clouds and universes are analogies; a mobile linguistic application. They act as metaphors linking to the topic we are exploring as we speak. Our main topic of this narrative is floating around and piercing into the question why it is that on the one hand we wish to cling on to definitions, identities and their resulting (aesthetic) forms as we’d be clinging on to clouds whilst we seemingly also might need and wish these definitions, identities and forms to float, be appropriated, evaporated and be recycled as much as clouds? And, again, how can we best apply this metaphoric process to the arts and to design?

It can feel good to have perspective on such and other things. It can also feel liberating to go beyond and across such perspectives, beyond such fixations or beyond such demarcation points in spacetime. Definitions, like those for clouds, are useful. They are useful to play with, to sense forms within, to accept them as fluidly reshaping (if ever so slightly). In this short visit in this spacetime let us try to go beyond and across demarcations. While we can appreciate each so-called demarcation let us take them onto different planes and forge them together, deconstruct them and shuffle their drops within larger clouds. It is but poetry of water bubbles. While playing with their fluid ‘projections,’ the actual demarcations remain in existence.

Let us take the cloud metaphor and shift it further as poetic imagery. When I apply the word “poetry” or “poem” I do not purely refer to literature but rather to the spirit of poetry beyond its literary ancestry. Let us see poems as drops.

Now, define drops not only as being demarcated by the borderlines of their physical being but also as demarcations of a larger structure; i.e. a cloud. Let us envision it within our creative minds. Let us juggle with these terms until we become dizzy. Let us fold, swirl and convolute until pencil linings that define drops or clouds become vague and transit from one into the other. Dark lines turn into a fuzzy logic opening spaces in-between what once was strictly demarcated and differentiated as either within or as outside by those same lines.

This fuzziness is not simply vagueness; it is the opening of ‘in-between demarcations’ or an in-between space that functions as valid space for meaningful exploration and innovation. One could argue that the actual energy for debate and exploration lies ‘in-between demarcations’; that area where the territory of one demarcation comes into one or other form of contact with the territory of (an)other demarcation(s).[14]

There is space between the drops. If only for a minute, walk there with your mind. Each of our own pieces of mental poetry swirl in between the drops and into the drop across its demarcations and then into the cloud and out of it again. The cloud looses its integrity by becoming a loosening collection of drops. Take one drop and let it drip back into what’s left of its ancestral cloud (or of a ‘work-copy’ of the initially used ‘cloud’ and ‘drop’). Shift and let the new and perhaps temporary demarcating lines emerge on their own. Perhaps what emerges is still a cloud, slightly altered. Perhaps it is something entirely different; something that might seem still vague as it is in flux. This type of vagueness introduces birth; it becomes. It becomes your poetry of universe bubbles.

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—One Demarcation; Warped Across Multiple Spaces—

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Daniel Kahneman, the psychologist (and founder of Behavioral Economics) who won a Nobel Price for Economics, stated on BBC during an interview early January 2011:

“What comes to our mind quickly generally is not ambiguous. Ambiguity is suppressed. If I say ‘they approached the bank,’ the word bank could mean one thing, you know, with money in vaults. Or, it could mean the bank of a river. What you think about depends on the context. You know, in the city you’ll be thinking of money. In the country you might think ‘rivers’. ”

Indeed the mind seems to suppress ambiguity for the sake of ease of daily communication and social interaction. Indeed context can resolve ambiguity. Context is space; it is to be conscious of the struggles surrounding meaning. Context is as negative space and exists around positive spaces within/beyond a painting, sculpture, architectural structure, urban setting or a virtual online game world.

Although context can resolve ambiguity, awareness can create ambiguity. I can be unaware of creating it or I can consciously do so. Ambiguity has an artistic and design value.  Ambiguity offers a controlled form of uncertainty with an aesthetic value.

Ambiguity offers to travel across contexts as if these were actual spaces while physically remaining in one locale. It offers a form of tele-presence; a way to be present and control an object or the entire space while not physically being there.

For instance, within the playing field of the artist, I can ‘control’[15] what exists in Alice’s Wonderland…

Tenniel, Sir John. (1865). Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Retrieved on January 7, 2012 from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Alice_05a-1116×1492.jpg

Sir John Tenniel’s illustration of the Caterpillar for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a well-known example to show ambiguity (and the act of controlling what exists). Its ambiguous central figure is the key. The caterpillar’s head can be observed as being a human  male’s face (almost as a silhouette) with a pointed nose and pointy chin and it can be mentally transformed to become the 3 legs and head-end of the caterpillar. It is therefor simultaneously both and neither until taken into conscious consideration. It is one or the other if a choice of context is applied; either that of the insect or that of the primate. Ambiguity invites transformation at the will of the ‘inter-actor’; the one who acts in-between acting contexts.

I disagree with the absolute tone of Kahneman within the interview when he continued to state that one is “never aware of the ambiguity.” I offer that one can train at certain times to become a bit aware of certain ambiguities. Also, I find the Oxford Dictionary’s definition of ‘ambiguity’ less than complete when it describes it as “uncertainty or inexactness of meaning in language” or  “a lack of decisiveness or commitment resulting from a failure to make a choice between alternatives.” Its definition found under ‘ambiguous’ is an essential addition.

‘Ambiguity’ is not only ‘uncertainty’ nor ‘inexactness’; it is simply not an absolute one-ness (‘one-ness’ as in, a word having one meaning). ‘Ambiguity’ is meaning-in-becoming solidified and thus decided without failure when/how the ambiguous word or other object is contextualized.

To be ambiguous means that some things are “open to more than one interpretation;” or some things have a double or even have multiple meaning(s). Ambiguity opens up the potential for a multi-focus; offering access to more than one focus while maintaining preciseness.

Ambiguity is a bit like a camera for language that can alter focus by shooting (in) a different context. As such, ‘ambiguity’ is very different from ‘vagueness.’ The latter implies a lack of any focus and a decrease of preciseness the former can be hyper-focused and precise, yet its location and space (i.e. its context) is up for grabs.

I suggest ‘ambiguity’ can be understood as a type of metaphoric potential where the easily linkable attributes are rather (too) obvious. Here the attribute used to link is the actual word itself. One word can refer to two (or more) very different things thus offering a metaphoric link within that one word for two things. This makes for one of the easiest creative mechanisms available to us.

Kahneman keeps the two banks apart, supposedly separated by (lack of) context. However, the metaphoric power of ambiguity is that we can easily convolute its two or more contexts as well. Imagine a bank is a collection of vaults, a collection of water, a river of money. It is where we fish for riches. Imagine a bank is where a river is deposited, as money is deposited in a body of water for good luck. The story or the potential creative resource, created by the ambiguity, is born.

To abstract this process into technologies or media, one can use one object that is applied very differently depending on its artistic or other functional context (i.e. a different applied technology or a variation of use for a different medium). In this manner one could forge an easy crossing between two realms via that one object. Whether this ‘object’ is a word, a visual or other would simply be a discussion of the medium and not of the possible processes crossing mechanisms. Here the focus is on the systems, processes and mechanisms.

For instance, textures found within nature can aid scientific discovery by understanding its function through its form.  Within these sciences color and form are part of what is observed, discovered, and technologically designed. The visual result can however be  “open to more than one interpretation.” It can have a double meaning depending on its context. It therefor becomes ambiguous. As an example, sciences involved in discovering and inventing semi-conductors and nanotechnology can result in, for instance, visually observable results.

Cristian Orfescu

An example of numerous such ambiguity-creating individuals is the (perhaps less known to many) scientist and artist Cristian Orfescu who uses his scientific nanotechnology skills to create art he then consequentially sells online (http://www.absolutearts.com/nanoart/additional-artwork).

An artist can thus be or become aware of possible ambiguities. The artists can actually be an agent or catalyst in bringing such ambiguity to life. The artist/designer can introduce additional or alternative contexts. In the example of Cristian Orfescu such ambiguity is that he assigns an artistic meaning to textures he discovers as a scientist via the mechanisms his technology open up for him. In fact his audience and his community supports the further development and sustainability of such newfound ambiguity. In this example ambiguity led to:

1. the creation of innovation beyond the linear or unidirectional innovative forces of nanotechnologies,
2. the exploration of new forms of interdisciplinary cooperation; i.e. science, art, PR, market.
3. the exploration of new forms of expression as well as
4. the birth of a potentially new and profitable market (i.e. the sales of the works online).

I need to come back to Kahneman’s interview. I must be fair to state that in a less anecdotal sense than what I offer, Kahneman is correct. In a compartmentalized, absolute and purist’s ideal sense of the function of a scientist there would not be any artistic meaning as part of the scientific awareness. If I am correct to understand the implications of what Kahneman states it is also right that statistically most likely the majority of scientists or even visual artists/designers might dismiss either artistic or technological exploration besides their respective processes and targets.

It can be noted that the idea of creating ambiguity is not new. In other words bridging associations between two or more entities that are otherwise perceived as separate due to their drastically different contexts is not new. These separate contexts are only on the surface in close proximity by the one word they share. Remember, even though a bank can be as close as actually being located at the banks of a river their proximity does not mitigate a few of their distant contexts.

Cristian Orfescu-

Linking the arts with technology is certainly neither new. It has been a goal for several individuals and art genres throughout the international history of arts. One such example is Bauhaus; an early 20^th century form. One could argue that Da Vinci’s artworks, and inventions are examples going across the worlds of art, design and engineering. The gamma of such individuals reaching from Da Vinci to Cristian Orfescu is quasi infinite.

The result from ambiguity is metaphoric. The artwork is a metaphor. In case of Orfescu’s work it is a metaphor not only of the science surrounding nanotechnology but also for the scientist’ struggle with the singular focus on the definition of his initial realm as defined by others versus the expanded and innovative focus offering a definition he and his newly found community attach to his realm by means of the actual initiation and sustaining of the earlier-mentioned 4 points.

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—Metaphorically linked Attributes—

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Since childhood I have had the intuition that metaphors are essential in how we think, see our world and even act within our surroundings. I dare hypothesize they are essential in the creation of our consciousness; a consciousness of creative beings. Several academia and artists support the importance of metaphors. So too do George Lakoff and Mark Johnson when they write a “metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action.[16]”

The creation of art/design is such action. The latter authors continue by stating that metaphors are not just a result of playing with words but rather that all “human thought processes are largely metaphorical.” I target a specific thought and action process when I state that all art/design is largely metaphorical. The sources for metaphoric strength have to be found in our mental processes as well as our limited or extended awareness of attributes within our surroundings. Simultaneously, metaphoric systems aid to create that same (perception of the) limited or more extended surrounding.

A metaphor is like a cross-wiring. A metaphor is a cross-connection. A metaphor can result in a “phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought.”[17] Such lack leads to a cliché.

Or, it can result in a free association, in a collage or bricolage.

Or, in another word, it can unveil a juxtaposition: where objects are forged closely together for contrasting effect via artificially yet sincerely associated attributes.

The brain does this all the time (in effect some brains do this amazingly; i.e. the synesthesia gene is still available in 10% of people).[18] Seemingly unrelated regions/modules in the brain are being connected. For instance, some see colors when hearing sounds, or others see specific colors when seeing specific numbers, (i.e. 5 is red, 6 is green, etc). Such links can make people more creative, able to be less literal. The brain makes metaphorical links. A metaphor is a link between SEEMINGLY unrelated concepts.

For instance, a link can be made between a celestial object and a young female of the human species: “She is radiant like the sun.” The sun has no human skin, no female body. The young lady is most likely not a huge ball of fire, deadly hot, with an enormous weight. The link bridges two very different objects. One or other attribute from each object is used to create the bridge. These attributes might have a certain degree of similarity. The less a similarity seems to exist between such attributes the more mysterious, disturbing, intriguing, ironic, absurd or illogical the association might feel during an initial observation. This is a simple metaphoric process. [19]

Surely, from a creative point we can increase or decrease degrees of such attributive links. For instance, I can imagine a sculpture where the sun has partly the body of a young woman. I can imagine the young lady floats peacefully in space and radiates onto the earth as if she were the sun. I can imagine many more variations defined or not by the meaning, form, function, media, technology I can, wish and intend to apply in or see interpreted from my work of art.

If one were a hyper-purist[20], a poetic relation, such as a metaphoric link, between “sun” and “young lady” would be unthinkable. Any such hybridity would thus be defined as degenerative. It would be labeled as the destruction of the purity of the denoted celestial object “sun” as well as of the ideal meaning of “young lady.”  The ideal meaning of “young lady” or of “sun” would as such be homogenous and static. As ideals it means they would each separately be perfect. It also means they would be extreme in their totalitarian property. Any less than such state of being extreme would refute each their state of idealness. Each would negate its state of perfection. To singularly conserve their isolated meaning as homogenous and as the norm of themselves would create a reality where their norm exits as an absolute totally encompassing space. Compared to space as defined in the arts, “sun” and “young lady” would each occupy neither a positive space nor negative space; they would each claim all there is to occupy. Each would exist without the acknowledgement of transition of any positive space into a negative space let alone into a conscious space surrounding each. Such extreme state obligates their meaning to be solid, static, unmoved, and unchangeable. It is thus, from a creative or innovative point of view and for all practical purposes, similar to being dead.

Note, in a sense a dictionary, which could be seen to function as an art museum of words, does not show the metaphoric potentials linking “sun” with “young lady.” In such sense a dictionary is a collection of the dead. Metaphorically, a dictionary, as any showcased collection of objects, is a graveyard. If one were to move its pertained objects around unresponsive to their surroundings and without infusing them with the life given by innovative power of metaphoric association, these objects would be like the walking dead; zombies.

To give birth to a new and more fluid form of a socio-artistic poetry one must understand some of the tradition of “poems”[21] beyond ones own short-term traditions (even if that short-term covers thousand of years). One must know the “poems” while no longer seeing them. One can even aim to be(come) a poem without being defined by it as much as seeing our earlier-mentioned cloud does not make one to be the cloud. To give birth to a loud sounding truth of artistic form one must appreciate infinite lies and thundering silences. One can appreciate the poem’s deviations, interruptions and stains while still maintaining some obsession with love-hate for its underlying arbitrary or systematic form. One thus swirls into unfinished poems; poetic artistry in becoming.

Although we try, and although if one needs to, one should try; it is also the case that one form cannot, nor should, be dismissed for another.

A metaphoric approach to form is not a call for polarity against established form but rather a supplanting of singular form by multiple forms and this by means of innovative processes of thinking. Just like the forces actively expanding the universe (or multi-verses) so too can metaphors and other processes aid to expand the creative and artistic attributes of our mental forum.[22]

Let us shift the imagery again making it possible to “leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.”[23]

Form, and the shifting of form can imply anything beyond a poem, anything beyond a cloud. For instance, technologies and media form intricate parts within the artistic processes. A pencil or chisel is technology. Some designate a tree’s trunk, a canvas or sheets of paper as media but others define these as media-delivering technologies. It is arguably so that any media (except, perhaps, the tree’s trunk) is a form of or result of technology. One form of technology or medium ameliorates, shifts into, appropriates, and complements another depending on the created attributive links of that creative moment in spacetime. In fact, as an implied artistic premise, why dismiss or ignore what can be appropriated at any later stage in spacetime? One should not always feel obligated to always force these technologies, media, content into a pre-defined shape or function even if we clearly focus to have form follow a function; a function of the moment; a function becoming a shifted multi-functionality. The ultimate goal of function does not exclude the convoluted integration of media and technology during the processes leading up to one or other functional result. I’d argue the opposite. The omission thereof can reduce functionality.

As they are but seemingly contradictory, one should not feel uninterruptedly obligated to struggle tremendously with these issues. More so, even if they contradict, they can be functional while in flux. It is a matter of creative and adaptive thought. However, such struggle is essential. Struggle can be beauty as struggle is part of the processes implied within the vague idea of consciousness. Moreover, such actions intertwining, creating and adapting can come from non-actions and vice versa. One can suddenly be introduced to a previously discrete set of attributes linked with yet another set just because one is not forcefully looking for it. Thus one ends up metaphorically mapping freely associated attributes resulting into an innovation in form and some yet-not-entirely born meaning.

—

—Intellectually Creative Questions—

—

I will now revert back to the core questions and the poetic goals mentioned in the opening of part 1:

1. We define technology, social processes, identities, etc. Many of us want to be defined. Paradoxically, we are unable to define and wish to escape definition forcing a singular form onto us (as defined by social memes, legalities, (artistic) media and technologies considered appropriate or not). Why is that? How does that apply to the arts and to design?
2. Can we find or develop an overarching a shift in consciousness?
3. Can this shift…
   • maximize (ever so slightly) one’s mental access and
   • give insights into the potential (fantasy of) identities[24] and
   • offer views on any of their undeveloped multi-sensorial perceptions as well as
   • unveil possible and latent definitions intermingled or dissolved within these (im)possible identities
   • Can we find these even if we were only to focus on those infinities within human artistic endeavors?
   • Can one simultaneously anticipate possible (dis-)advantage of engaging in such shift?

During these narrative explorations (yet, preferably: during these debates) the idea to get across via our analysis of issues associated to the above questions should be that of:

1. transitional flexibility across various socio-cultural matrices,[25]
2. an openness towards an in-between cultural state (in flux),
3. a cross-media and transmedia consciousness,
4. a fluidity across (mental and physical) spaces (urban or other),
5. a capacity to see simplicity in complexity and complexity in simplicity,
6. a willingness to read what is not written and imagine what is not thought.
7. summarized this text/debate might unveil an infinite search for fluidity crossing and intertwining media, artistic form, artistic tools, technology and socio-cultural values and memes.
8. and… the ability to go further than our daily yet useful common-senses and put the previous points as well as following poetics into one’s own version of a fictional image: an empathic capability to imagine one-self as an inter-galactic alien looking from outer-space upon the human endeavor providing insights on how the variations (in usage, in interpretation, in perception, in definition, in action, ….) seem to intertwine, unravel  and intertwine again (as it is seen from a mental distance).

.

PART 2

.

—

—Areas for Present-day Praxis—

—

To get these poetic constructs and metaphoric processes across, this text shall touch (very superficially due to time constraints) on several areas. Whether we can cover all five content areas shall depend on the time available. Priority is given in a decreasing manner to the first and least to the last.

Following I shall offer quick and short Introductions of the areas I mentioned I would touch upon.

These areas will answer the questions offered previously and will give present-day opportunity for application and praxis.

What are these areas?

As I suggested in the introduction the areas shall be:

AREA 1

Socially Fluid Poetry.

an area poetically interpreting a socio-political spectrum for artistic purposes,

AREA 2

Fluid Spaces.

conscious space as an added area to the artistic concepts of negative space and positive space;

AREA 3

Fluid Culture.

an area for artistic application beyond strict confinements of copyright law; an in-between to ownership;

AREA 4

Fluid Media
an area of artistic processes mixing, cutting and pasting media beyond linear/uni-directional and techno-centric application;

AREA 5

Fluid Urbanism.

an area of functional and aesthetic merger of media and technologies within urban settings leading towards an interdisciplinary multi-sensorial and participatory praxis;

—

—Short Introduction of the Areas—

—

AREA 1: Socially Fluid Poetry.

One such area we shall touch covers the variations that shall be found within a suggested political spectrum (in fact more like a 3D sphere in cloud-like motion) beyond a static linear left-right concept yet without trying to point biased fingers at any specific present-day institution.[26]

AREA 2: Fluid Spaces.

Another is the convolution found within the artistic concept of positive and negative space by ameliorating it with an idea of a fluid “conscious space.” This shall combine an intangible (non-party) political spectrum (see point 1/) with an intangible artistic consciousness within our present-day tangible urban(ized) setting.

AREA 3: Fluid Culture.

This area shall focus on a practical example of how law and ownership (specifically copyright law and property) can be fluidly interpreted in various manners beyond the more rigid surface of the law itself. This combines a (non-party) political spectrum with an artistic consciousness within the intangible urbanized settings of ownership.

This area is an exploration of tendencies towards a fluid ownership of specific cultural attributes.

AREA 4: Fluid Media

More examples of such crossing media approach shall be found in a short exploration of how certain (media delivery) technologies/media can be applied beyond their initially intended usage (or beyond the biases associated with that). This combines the above within the hard tangible tools (technology/media) making these “softer” for future usage.

AREA 5:  Fluid Urbanism.

In a similar and associated manner, artistic forms can cross one another into a shared realm. Metaphoric links can be forged between the attributes of different artistic or disciplinary realms. For instance, “music” (deconstructed and redefined as in “soundscapes”) can be consciously evaluated or introduced into or from within complex architectural settings. So too can technologies be used within narrow settings to create an interactive & immersive urban experience.

Space can thus be created from hard tangible forms or intangible soft fluid forms (i.e. sound, virtual space, mental/emotional/creative space). This makes the mentally hardened intangible demarcations between one discipline, one media, one technology or one space softer.

—

—The Areas Further Explored—

—

—

AREA 1: Socially Fluid Poetry.

—

This is an area poetically interpreting a socio-political spectrum for artistic purposes.

Now that we have set the stage through the introduction of clouds, drops, a young lady, the sun, attributes, metaphors and the likes I shall move into the first area we earlier set forth to explore. This area poetically interprets a socio-political spectrum for artistic purposes. I shall offer my creative interpretation of how I see a political spectrum. I will point at the forms of or shifts away from action-reactions related to each slice within that spectrum. I shall aim to associate each slice with artistic consequences.

Following our bird’s-eye view of this spectrum (AREA 1), I shall move into AREA 2  and the following AREAS after that. In AREA 2 I shall move on to associate the spectrum’s constructs with the construct of negative and positive space. This association unearths a space I defined as “conscious space”. The ability to shift from one space (one slice of the spectrum) into another shall become visualized. It is the aim with these associations to offer tools as if they were cognitive technology that can be applied within whichever work of art or small or large-scale designs.

So, what shall we do with this spectrum? It shall show social and political viewpoints that can be easily applied to small- or large-scale design (i.e. urban design) and art across timespace. It should however be noted that with ‘politics’ I do not mean ‘party politics’. I neither refer to actual individuals neither to any government. They are of no interest to me whatsoever in this discussion. I rather refer to the original meaning of the word ‘polis’, meaning ‘city’ and ‘citizen’. I thus singularly refer to how citizens organize their living, being and becoming in the collection of (architectural, design or art) constructs they dwell within or even dwell upon. And, I do this in a fluid, poetic, creative or artistic manner. I do not engage in an official manner not in a formal style and not in any singular political target.

The spectrum can be viewed through a visual social poem (see image here below). Such spectrum defines artistic form and function and is thus hovering between the descriptive and prescriptive. In other words: that what is observed and that what is aimed for. I observe and aim to corroborate that the large-scale (or macro-) parts of such spectrum intend to define and extinguish the too-large-a-movement of positive spaces, negative spaces and the attributes within these spaces (i.e. form, memes, semiotic elements) in artistic work. However, when we observe definitions/attributes within the spectrum, and when we try to a workable degree make these part of our knowledge base, we become more enabled to shift these definitions/attributes around or jump in-between them. This we might perhaps end up doing at a speed faster than these definitions/attributes themselves could ever shift within our lifetimes. This process shall create doors opening enlargements of each of our conscious spaces.

[ADDITION: a link to the entire political spectrum’s visual representation. The accompanying visual can be downloaded from the Internet Archive here.].

A higher resolution version of this exploratory socio-political visual poem shall be made available soon as i is ready for upload

What are the macro-parts I hint of? Although most of us (no matter in which culture or country one was nurtured) might have been taught there are two dominant and hierarchical parts, in this case, this spectrum offers 4 macro-parts instead of the meager two. I also suggest an infinite convolution or fluidity of these parts and their attributes. I pose that these are bend into a sphere that is in motion and within which these parts and their attributes are in synchronized or de-synchronized motion as well. They are floating around as if they are gentle or violent fish in a transparent sphere

This is a zoom into the entire visual poem. The poem showcases the political spectrum: top left=left libertarian; top right=right libertarian; bottom left=communism; bottom right=fascism/Nazism. The entire file is downloadable from a separate link

Further zoom ins:

a zoom in of the top left end of the visual poem

Arguably in each of these word clouds one can find terms as drops that would better fit another cloud. One can argue drops are missing, such as here above, Murray Bookchin’s terminology is missing, to name but one of the many other intentional and inevitable  inconsistencies; it implies a momentary click onto a fluidity.

a closer look at the top right corner.

yet another zoom. This time of the bottom left side of this visual poem.

and finally a detailed view on the bottom right area of this socio-political visual poem

Although most of us believe there is a right and a left part, or rather, a right and left side to the spectrum, one can venture and suggest a different approach. One can decide—contrary to what many voices I have been hearing seem to do—not to only focus on a left versus right dichotomy. But, rather, one can, by giving openness to an added up-and-down categorization, discover something a bit richer than an over-simplified left-versus-right polarity. We can roughly identify 4 parts; 2 times 2. One can swirl across, within, through, under and above these.

This is another zoom into the text area (it is not the final version; it is created to initiate debate rather than to be dogmatic)

The upper two clouds are focusing on the needs and wishes of the individual. The lower two on those of the group; the collective. The extreme edges of the lower two are absolute (thus singular) and totalitarian in nature. These two also sustain a larger degree of hierarchical thinking.

The edges of the upper two are pluralistic (thus multiple) and participatory on an individual level while assigning value to the alternatives and while considering variations more independently from what might be(come) culturally dominant. These two sustain a larger degree of rhizomic thinking (simply said this is a non-hierarchical manner of thinking).

The further away from the center the more ‘extreme’ concepts, the ideas,[27] and practical applications become; the more outspoken the artistic or designed form (and thus the resulting positive and negative spaces) become.

Let us have a closer look at a few of the many attributes I have dropped within and on the borders of each quadrant. In the center I focus on words in the peripheral I associate artistic works. These associations and locations are not exact science; they are poetic and not fixed. They are highly subjective and open for debate. I am sure we can find “mistakes.” That is ok and good. I would be shocked if we didn’t find any. Over time and depending on their context these associations might alter and shift locations.

An individual might unconsciously be fixed within one quadrant and consequentially shall perceive anything that does not fit within their perception of their own quadrant as more or less deviating. That unfitting form might consequentially be dismissed, ignored, hidden or even ostracized. It might become ridiculed as silly, stupid or clinically insane. It might be labeled as only existing in Lalaland.[28] Or perhaps it might become perceived as something that needs to be destroyed. Obviously, such conditions influence one in regards to what, how and where to form which art or design for what purpose. More so, one shall thus consider, (perhaps more unconsciously) what not to include, where not to create, how not to form or assign (a lack of) function. Yes, one could state that these macro-parts decide how spaces, form and function are eradicated even before they are born, come into existence, and do, or do not, intersect or interact with attributes, objects and contexts.

That stated, I do offer the suggestion that the macro-parts within the spectrum are not the sole actors in defining space, form and function. I suggest that by a conscious metaphoric approach to the whole of the spectrum one is a bit more liberated to more freely associate those attributes from within it that otherwise would seem unreachable, unacceptable or unthinkable. This kind of liberation is unthinkable if one were unconscious of the entirety and of the fluidity of the spectrum, or if one were consciously unwilling to go beyond one’s comfort-zone within that same spectrum.

One’s comfort zone functions as a box. Inside that box one would not create but rather self-imitate, imitate others within the same zone, or reproduce a set formula as prescribed within that same comfort-zone. A box has well-defined nooks. The nooks function like the idea-nooks I mentioned earlier where clouds (of ideas) get stuck. From a point of view considering sustenance, security and pleasure, the box/comfort-zone can be fine or desirable. But, perhaps one wishes to venture beyond the zone at times. To venture is not to criticize; it is taking a self-controlled journey into the unknown while owning a ticket back home. The mentioned consciousness offers an additional option to do so: to venture and return when one wishes it. If one has the intention of venturing into innovative creation it is thus artistically essential to realize what this box or comfort-zone is and to question whether it truly has to be shaped and cornered[29] (“cornered” as in “idea-nooked”) as such for one to enable an output of one’s next design or artwork. This venturing leads to “thinking outside the box”[30].

A poetically instilled[31] social spectrum offers an increased access to a space I entitled as the Conscious Space. Why is this? To perceive and perhaps even know our context is to gain access to perceptions (this is a form of knowledge) on some of our social setting in past, present and seeming future direction. It is to see some of its meaning or the meaning of targeted art objects within these social settings. This is in analogy with ambiguous words that can only be defined if contextualized. To see the ambiguous words within a temporary, arbitrary, logic, fixed or natural location of the spectrum is to possibly see their various attributes within a larger context. Their attributes are like drops, clouds, stars, and multiple universes. They are infinite. They are in motion. They cause or even enforce cohesion and simultaneously instigate deviation; all in one all at once. This can open possibility to link them up with concepts and ideas obtained from elsewhere. These attributes offer us to conceptualize metaphoric links ad infinitum. These metaphors are injected with contextualized potency by choosing the most applicable and linkable attributes. These attributes can only be unveiled if the micro- or macro- structures containing them are unveiled and opened for artistic analysis. This is what the poetic creator of the spectrum intends to offer.

Of course, in the moment of “choosing” attributes, chance or serendipity[32] might be at play as well. In fact, serendipity is essentially part or essentially shunned away from or even hidden from the public’s mind, depending on one’s given or chosen context and depending how much one wishes to deviate away from what one knows. As ‘to know’ means one has control, serendipitously associating attributes is to embrace a degree of the unknown and to lessen control, resulting in the potentially unexpected innovation. The top quadrants, perhaps especially the left one, might be more inviting towards serendipitous approaches where the bottom two might more commonly ostracize such initiative as exhibiting lack of focus, of target, of proper process or of formally established technique. One should note however that serendipity does not necessarily mitigate these.

One could associate several other artistic processes, forms, techniques and approaches with this spectrum. If we have no time left here to debate these, I invite you to engage in this on your own terms and in your own time.  In this light, let us in broad and surely debatable streaks associate the spectrum with slightly modified quotes from Sol LeWitt[33] taken from “Sentences on Conceptual Art”. Art-Language, Coventry, vol. 1, no. 1, May 1969:

1. Conceptual Artists… leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach. [top versus bottom quadrants]
2. Rational judgments repeat rational judgments[bottom quadrants]
3. Illogical judgments lead to new experience. [left top quadrant]
4. Formal Art is essentially rational [bottom quadrants]
5. Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically [irony on top quadrants by using bottom]
6. [omitted]
7. The artist’s will is secondary to the process he imitates from idea to completion. His willfulness may only be ego [seemingly bottom quadrants or perhaps rather top ones?]
8. When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist who would be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations [bottom quadrants]
9. [omitted]
10. Ideas alone can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical [top left quadrants]
11. Ideas do not necessarily proceed in logical order. They may set one off in unexpected directions… [top quadrants]
12. [omitted]
13. A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist’s mind to the viewer’s. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist’s mind [top quadrants]
14. [omitted]
15. Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the artist may use any form from an expression of words, (written or spoken) to the physical reality, equally. [top left quadrants]
16. If words are used, an they proceed from ideas about art, then they are art and not literature, numbers are not mathematics. [top quadrants]
17. All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art. [bottom quadrants]
18. One usually understands the art of the past by applying the conventions of the present thus misunderstanding the art of the past. [bottom quadrants]
19. The conventions of art are altered by works of art. [top quadrants]
20. Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions. [top quadrants]
21. Perception of ideas leads to new ideas. [top quadrants]
22. [omitted]
23. One artist may mis-perceive (understand it differently than the artist) a work of art but still be set off in his own chain of thought by that misconstrual. [top quadrants]
24. Perception is subjective. [top quadrants]
25. The artist may not necessarily understand his own art. His perception is neither better nor worse than others. [top quadrants]
26. An artist may perceive the art of others better than his own. [top quadrants]
27. [omitted]
28. [omitted]
29. [omitted]
30. [omitted]
31. [omitted]
32. [omitted]
33. [omitted]
34. When an artist learns his craft too well he makes slick art [critique of bottom quadrant].
35. [omitted]

Associating these processes, forms, techniques and even the implied technologies and media with the spectrum by means of attributes or metaphors or other mechanisms allows us to access a different if not increased conscious space. It helps us to fluidly move from one space into another space. It makes transitions from negative space into positive space )or vice versa) as valid in-between spaces where pause for thought and contemplation possibly results in creative or innovative outcomes. In Area 2, entitled Fluid Spaces, we shall have a closer look at the basic concepts of these three spaces (positive, negative and conscious space).

—

AREA 2: Fluid Spaces.

—

An Enriching of the Negative Space and Positive Space with a Conscious Space.

the introduction of conscious space as an added area to the artistic concepts of negative space and positive space

The terms ‘negative space’ and ‘positive space’ will primarily be used in their most basic of meanings as understood within the arts. Secondly, though, fine tunings of their meaning can be applied. The second group is of interest here. The reason being because in such manner we can see the concept of fluidity’s mechanisms at work in that area that is inherent to art and design. After all, one can debate, is there art or design without positive nor negative space?

To make sure we step forward from the same base let us define that ‘negative space’ is here understood as the space between objects or parts thereof. ‘Negative space’ can be understood as the space around an object (or subject). The object (or subject) itself will occupy what we here shall define as ‘positive space.’

From a designer and artist point of view focusing on negative spaces rather than focusing on the positive space (i.e. the object or subject of the painting) it is known the resulting art work might become more accurate Though, it seems that often negative space takes on an inferior role compared to positive space. To substantiate this last statement consider this: have you found a majority of observers of a visual work to spend more time on analyzing the negative space or rather a majority studying the positive space? We can manipulate this bias and shift it. Make it more fluid.

A shifting form of negative space is the idea of it being a pause or an interval. It is that space opening up the opportunity to become conscious of place, space and form or the absence thereof.

In Asian painting (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, etc) you might know this as what at least Japanese define as Ma (間); it is a term I found in Japanese (art) but I imagine it must also exist as a Chinese concept (i.e. see Lao Zi). It is that what takes place in the consciousness of someone who experiences negative and positive spaces. I take this as a transitional mechanism towards what I define as ‘conscious space’.

We glide from positive space into negative space into conscious space; we have the opportunity to end up mixing them together into a complex yet knowledge-gathering experience.

The Chinese philosopher Lao zi wrote extensively on the concept of ‘Ma’. Here is one of his writings that is applicable:

Thirty spokes meet in the hub,

but the empty space between them

is the essence of the wheel.

Pots are formed from clay,

but the empty space between it

is the essence of the pot.

Walls with windows and doors form the house,

but the empty space within it

is the essence of the house.

It is this in-between space—this space allowing transition—that is of interest to me. To go into further detail, for instance, the cliché concept of Trompe-l’œil or optical illusion examples show the dynamics, fluidity and shift between positive and negative space leading to a bounce or shiver within conscious space. The idea is to instigate a comfort-zone of doubt (to feel comfort with discomfort) in relation to dominance of one space over the other.

In these works there is no dominance of one over the other. These spaces are in infinite flux, in fluid harmony. The vase interlinked with the two facial profiles in a classic example. The fluidity of silhouettes is solidified depending on the context our minds attaches to such an optical illusion.

Ambiguity is essential in these cases. Although one might argue that two positive spaces struggle over the same territory—as a figure-ground reversal—one can decide to see both simultaneously or perhaps one can decide to acknowledge both equally yet alternatingly offer attention to one or the other.

Rubin Vase. Retrieved February 2012 from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Rubin2.jpg

Some refer to these images such as Rubin’s vase (the vase with two faces) as brain-teasers. I refer to them as mind-expanders.

Pere Borrel’s Escaping Criticism Retrieved February 15, 2012 from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Escaping_criticism-by_pere_borrel_del_caso.png

In del Caso’s work the positive space enters the negative space. The negative space becomes intertwined with the conscious space of the viewer: factually the figure of the boy seems to enter a non-physically existing negative space that lies on top of the work while the boy also enters into the viewers space, the museum space, the gazing space. All these so-called spaces are collected into the space where consciousness (or in this case “Criticism”) roams. To be “Escaping Criticism” one needs to engage the space of criticism.  Although critique and criticism are different (one is constructive and rational the other not) they both require consciousness as an increased level of sensitiveness for the attributes in one’s surrounding. Indeed, to be able to criticize one needs to be conscious of the elements surrounding that what is offered critique. True critique is therefor the innovative result of actual interaction rather than simplistic opposition. ‘To critique’ or ‘a critique’ does not mean the same as ‘to criticize’ or give criticism. When one critiques one does not have the aim to find fault. When one criticizes one does have that more destructive aim. Critique is of interest and mainly constructive, criticism is not. Critique, and to a certain extent criticism as well, are essential to the experience of conscious space.

Critique enables us to initiate a metaphoric approach to the attributes defined as unique within one or other concept immanent in one or other part of the previously explored spectrum. This attribute (i.e. critique) of the conscious space allows us to fluidly form negative and positive space of an artistic creation or other design beyond the formulaic of our appreciated yet common sense. It is rudimentary to realize that the common is not innovative due to its nature of being widespread. Poetically stated, the uncommon sense is the innovative sense. I hypothesize that if one were less conscious of the forces within each attribute of each quadrant in our poetic social spectrum; or if one were less conscious of the possibilities in-between negative and positive spaces of a becoming artwork one tends to lean more towards the common rather than the innovative.

Spectra such as the one mentioned in Area 1 of this text, are the fluid or rigid basis for our individual consciousness. This is what I collectively shall define as our individual conscious space. The positive spaces and negative spaces can truly be put into place if, even momentarily, conscious space is available.

Positive space can deteriorate (i.e. wear and tear, fading colors, erosion, corrosion, etc). Negative space is altered in the same or even synchronized manner with positive space. Either both spaces are made from the same material yet visually and geometrically function differently or, for instance, residue from a corrosive process within a positive space (i.e. a building) could infiltrate negative space (i.e. the space around the building). In regards to urban settings where positive spaces can be corroded by pollutants, negative spaces can be occupied and shifted in meaning by smog, traffic sounds, honking of horns, effects due to the disregard of standard traffic conduct, traffic congestion, reflection of light from glass surfaces, etc.

Yes, the polis (remember this means the ‘city’ and its ‘citizens’) functions by means of the interactions of its negative, positive and conscious spaces. One is imbued with attributes of the other. One is in fact never void of the attributes of the other. I go further that one cannot exist without the attributes of the other. How we act and interact within the shifts of meaning occurring within these spaces can only be catalyzed by conscious space. Without it the two most commonly accepted spaces are void of meaning and certainly any shift within these would go unnoticed. Applying actual shifts in-between these would be entirely out of the question. In fact, most commonly it seems positive space is prioritized more than the other two. I advocate an equal treatment of all three with the goal to maximize long-term and sustainable dynamics of innovation and creative and artistic interaction.

We can apply positive, negative and conscious space to a physical polis or to its abstraction as presented in the poetic social spectrum I showed earlier. The space between each attribute is negative space. The actual attributes and their demarcation/location within the larger spectrum is the positive space. The vision to be able to see the spectrum as a sphere with the positive and negative spaces in fluid motion making demarcations and locations ambiguous or in cases vague is the degree of associated conscious space. The ability to associate certain attributes (of attributes of attributes) is a larger degree of conscious space. The degree of serendipity allowed during the metaphoric process of associating attributes is a variation of that conscious space.

—

AREA 3: Fluid Culture

—

Here I define the collection of all rules, regulations and laws as forms and degrees of rigidity or as temporarily fixed definitions with their increased or decreased degree of consequences when redefined without proper institutionalized and formal consensus within a larger social setting. For instance, the individual idiosyncratic redefinition of laws that define the respect for someone’s life could result in jail time or even death penalty. Although few might get away with it (even publically), we each tend to seriously respect those legal definitions without collective deviation. However, there are laws that are still strong but that allow certain flexibilities for broader interpretation. Some seem to be a bit more open to fluidity.

Copyright (as part of the larger scope of Intellectual Property Law) is such set of laws I would like to touch on here. Laws, rules or regulations concerning censorship are another set I will slightly touch. I choose these mainly because they apply directly to the creative, artistic and innovative mechanisms associated with designers, architects or artists in general. Secondly, artistic or associated communities across the world have been exploring these extensively for a while now. We will use one or two examples as case studies. These activities and examples do not necessarily give a whole picture. They certainly do not provide a singularly objective view. However, they offer the temporary opportunity to venture around from within whichever cloud of thought we might feel comfortable, into the potential of other shaped and textured clouds of creative thought.

‘free culture’ also considers issues related to copying. Here is a badge based on the “Mickey Mouse’ theme deconstructed and re-conceptualized by the visual artist Nina Paley. This chapter on Fluid Culture will use some of here work as case studies. The photo is retrieved on February 15, 2012 from the Wikipedia entry on Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/GlamCamp_NY_Kippelboy_nina_Paley_%282%29.JPG

It should be mentioned that this topic is often excitingly associated with the concept of ‘free culture.’ [34] Though I salute the exploration of theories concerning ‘free culture’, in this text I find the association with ‘free’ a bit too narrow. Within the context of this text and its main concepts, ‘fluid culture’ is more applicable. ‘Free’ can for the most part imply an absence of ownership, pricing, control or power. These are important to consider. However, ‘Fluid’ is intentionally more ambiguous as it simultaneously can AND can’t embrace ‘free.’ Here I feel ‘fluid’ implies a hint of a somewhat tài jí quán-like elegance (太极拳) as well as it points at  ‘combination’, ‘transition’, ‘transformation’[35] and ‘movement’ from one demarcation, one definition, one sphere, or one application into others. ‘Fluidity’ here opens the option to go from the known to the unknown in association with one or other (attribute of) a cultural object. It fits better with the spirit of this poetic text. However, for deeper study or artistic thought in this area I must direct you to concepts known as and associated with ‘free culture’. [36]

I will predominantly touch on copyright. Firstly, I shall attempt to shortly relate censorship to copyright.

The relationship between the two is based on a few overlapping attributes. For instance, where one might be targeting creative output as property, the other might be more focused on the abstract concept of the effects on security of information. Both are however concerned with cultural objects and their consequences.  The one affects the other. Where the practical application of copyright laws can result in the censorship of one or other cultural object, the practical application of censorship limits or mutes the fruits related to the publication of copyright-protected cultural objects (i.e. profits and credits following market applications related to the ownership of the cultural object) in favor of national security or public health and/or enlightenment in accordance to the regulations supervised by certain institutions. Both copyright and censorship define the degree of rigidity versus fluidity of culture. Both are applied in a diminished or increased degree depending on the quadrants covered within the social spectrum discussed earlier.

In its mainstream construct, copyright is unequivocally associated to applications of concepts surrounding property. Property can be owned, can be shared, can be bartered, can be sold, can be exhibited to, broadcasted to or hidden from an audience or it can be stolen from its owner. Intuitively, the last action might be considered to result in one or other legal consequence. The larger concept that includes “copying is not theft,” as supported by such visual artists as Nina Paley, also claims, “censorship is theft.” Such thought implies that when a cultural object—such as a creation commenting on another cultural object—is “blocked, banned, erased, or otherwise censored, we [the people] don’t have it any more. The commons is robbed.”[37]

Screenshot ripped from the animation Copying Is Not Theft. Score arranged and recorded by Nik Phelps. Vocals by Connie Champagne. Song and animation by Nina Paley. Retrieved March 1, 2012 from http://questioncopyright.org/minute_memes/copying_is_not_theft or from http://archive.org/details/CopyingIsNotTheft or from  Here.

Practically, the statement that copying is not theft yet censorship is, implies that when an artist, for instance, copies a (part or attribute of a) song into, for instance, his/her artistic video for the purpose to make a cultural or creative statement within a larger cultural context, the original version of the song copied is still there. So, from this perspective the premise is that the original song is not gone; it is not stolen.  ‘To steal’ an object means that the original owner no longer has the object. When, however, the owner of the (partly) copied song censors the newly created video on the basis of legally accepted application of copyright law, this video shall be gone from the cultural forum. Here the idea means to state that the public no longer has access to the micro-innovated cultural object. From the same perspective the premise is that the video is censored or rather—as a cultural object—the video is grabbed from the possession of the public; it has been stolen. This stance is perhaps not a mainstream way of looking at the matter of copyright (nor censorship) in relation to cultural objects (such as an art work).

However, the mainstream, the public or the owner of a cultural object is neither always right nor always wrong and from a creative, innovative and artistic point of view one should at least consider all relevant consequences for a while.[38] For instance, micro innovations can only be considered on the basis of pre-existing cultural objects (and for that matter, of pre-existing media and technology).

Secondly, several voices argue that purely original or purely authentic creations do not really exist but rather one object is fluidly created on a preexisting attribute of another object from within the same or from within another sphere/realm. In a large part this is a dominant attribute of what I define as Fluid Culture. On this matter, as a case study, Nina Paley and company made a wonderful artistic statement appropriating digitized representations of historical and historic works of art; specifically sculptures from across time and across several civilizations as photographed from their exhibition locations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I invite you to view the video entitled “All Creative Work Is Derivative.”[39]

Besides having the goal to show “clear examples of visual language evolution,” this video intends to show that “the whole history of human culture evolves through copying, making tiny transformations (sometimes called “errors”) with each replication. Copying is the engine of cultural progress. It is not “stealing.” It is, in fact, quite beautiful, and leads to a cultural diversity that inspires awe.”[40] In addition to fluidly passing through cultural objects across spacetime by means of transformation it is also a prime example of transmedia narrative. The video takes a set of 914 cultural objects from within a medium made with one set of technology and resulting in one story line (i.e. sculpting with a chisel in the medium of granite with the goal to tell a religious story by representing a goddess or other) into a new media of digital photography, editorial software and online video sharing shifted traditional form into an entirely yet historically and culturally all-embracing present-day narrative. This video is a pinnacle of a culturally fluid aesthetic. The topic of transmedia I will shortly touch within Area 4 on Fluid Technology.

In general we can observe that specifically in the past decades these legal sets related to copyright, and to an extent censorship, have globally shown a tremendous fluidity. Especially digitization and digital media have catalyzed this fluidity, while cyberspace has tremendously boosted it, peer-to-peer technology has catapulted the fluidity of copyright law (and the fluid approach towards censorship) into a very different, or rather, enlarged context compared to the context it historically might have started off from.

the Mickey Mouse character created by Ubbe Ert Iwwerks and owned by Walt Disney. The character or its derivatives are often used in artistic cultural comments. This rendition was retrieved on June 15, 2012 from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7f/Mickey_Mouse.svg                                                                       … June 6, 2013 note: ironically, this file is no longer available on the original site; is it telling or coincidence?… here

This rendition is used for academic purposes only. It is property of its rightful owner. No property claims to it are made by referencing to it here.

Artistic forms, designs, any cultural artifact or intellectual asset could be collectively called ‘cultural objects of humanity’. In its more socially, economically, legally and politically limited senses that means these objects are part of the identity or public image of a nation, of a community, of a polis, of an institution, of a commercial group or of an individual within which these same forms are privately owned—and therefor live in the private domain—or whether these are publically owned—or therefor roam around in the public domain. For instance, Mickey Mouse is such form. Most likely it currently is still an asset privately owned by a commercial group; i.e. The Walt Disney Corporation. The tangible collection of specific attributes such as the shape, color-coding, typography, words and design combined into what is recognized as a tangible Coca Cola bottle are to a certain extent privately owned.[41] Yet these amongst infinitely others are quintessential attributes in what is generally understood as being part of American culture or at least of Americanism. And these American memes themselves are but a subcategory of all possibly imaginable objects when considering global human cultural output across spacetime.

an example of a Mickey Mouse appropriation used in Craig Baldwin’s 1995 appropriationist art film ‘Sonic Outlaw’. The image was retrieved on January 17, 2012 from http://videodromomty.com/archives/tag/mayo

In seeming paradox to the fact that copyright implies income for the owners of the artistic or cultural property, in this text we focus on fluidity, association by means of metaphors, or by means of appropriation of attributes of a larger whole. An artwork or cultural artifact (owned or not by someone) is such larger whole. Please remember being the creator does not mean one is the (part) owner; again, Mickey Mouse is such example or any ‘work-for-hire’—such as when one designs under corporate or similar contract–follows this strict distinction. Either way, the cultural object is either open or vulnerable to be appropriated and associated into another context. The object is thus is either open or protected against becoming semiotically ambiguous. Remember, placing something into a different context can change its original meaning thus offering it to have at least 2 meanings; or more. As such it would enter the realm of ambiguity. Depending on the quadrant (see Area 1 for details) one starts from, such ambiguity is labeled as a corruption of that one cultural asset or rather categorized as an enrichment of the whole collective of cultural objects.

In the light of these polarities let us consider a quote from a US judge in a court case[42] concerning a copyright-related disagreement between the famous visual artist Koons and the fashion-photographer Andrea Blanch who’s work for Gucci was published in the August 2000 issue of Allure magazine and that was appropriated by Koons without Blanch’s consent:

“[the original artwork is used as] raw material in a novel way to create new information, new aesthetics and new insights. Such use, whether successful or not artistically, is transformative.”

Koons won the case and was allowed to ‘steal’ or differently put ‘appropriate’ attributes from Blanch’s work.

This is a zoom into the entire visual poem. The poem showcases the political spectrum: top left=left libertarian; top right=right libertarian; bottom left=communism; bottom right=fascism/Nazism. The entire fill will be made downloadable from a separate link at a later date.

Depending on the demarcation points of its vague, fixed or fluid location within the social spectrum we explored earlier such cultural object will be more or less accessible as a resource for the needs and concepts of the next artist:

1.

If the art work-as-resource floats around within the top left quadrant it will be for the taking by anyone and most likely it might have 1 condition that it shall not be used for commercial purposes. In its extreme, such work most likely would aim not to follow any (mainstream) cultural standards but rather would explore individual idiosyncratic expressions that mainly lack, oppose or investigate any formalization. In this quadrant copying is not seen as stealing but rather as an artistic format known as appropriation art or simply as a natural process of cultural development. As we observed in the above case study, some more extreme voices express that a rigid and corporate application of copyright laws is a form of censorship and censorship is stealing the possibility of the individual or of the community to express itself on a cultural or artistic level. In this quadrant it seems to be easier to unconsciously or consciously as well as to a larger degree freely engage into artistic mechanisms such allusion, parody and pastiche (i.e. concepts directly or loosely related to theories on intertextuality)[43]  due to the looser application if not absence of copyright and (related) censorship.

2.

If the object is contained within the extreme of the left bottom quadrant its copyright, ownership or usage will be controlled by the state, owned by the collective and not open for appropriation without the specific guidelines, regulations according to the formulas defined by the relevant and authorized institutions. This is closely related to guidelines as defined by the state’s cultural gatekeepers (i.e. information, censorship and propaganda bureaus). For instance, a North-Korean artist might be at given times sanctioned to paint images of one leader following rigid guidelines of medium, form, color and style but might be barred to paint or let alone sketch any images of any other leaders. In this sense copyright and censorship are closely related. One has the right to copy that what is not censored. Or, in other words: one has the right to copy that what is sanctioned. Ownership based on authorship or copyright is however lacking and possibly prohibited.

3.

If the cultural (or artistic) object is located within the right bottom corner it will follow a same rigidity and gatekeeping as the left bottom while following and guided by different sets of formulas. Though, both will follow very similar yet rigid rules relating to state-sanctioned handpicked hero-worshiping. For instance, formulas might be referring to purity of race or highly-controlled religious icons and idealized corporal representation versus formulas referring to other (possibly vague and) broad categories supporting the health and enlightenment of the public at large.

’Entartete Kunst’ translates as ‘Degenerate Art’. For the Nazis ‘degenerate’ applied to “any type of art that was incompatible with their ideology or propaganda. Whole movements were labeled as such, including Expressionism, Impressionism, Dada, New Objectivity, Surrealism, Cubism, and Fauvism, [innovative and avant-garde art forms among others.” This is the poster and exhibition guide’s cover of the Nazi exhibition in1937. It shows Otto Freundlich’s sculpture, Der neue Mensch [The New Man] (1912). Retrieved on February 15, 2012 from http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=2078″]

Clear examples can be found in the brand books/visual guideline books of the Nazis during Hitler’s reign in pre-1945 Germany. They referred to this as ‘Gleichschaltung’ or ‘synchronization’. Everything had to follow the Nazi aesthetic including painting, fashion, as well as “graphic design and advertising, typefaces and illustration” and architectural design.[44]

In this quadrant (and well as the left one) I believe one could also find a category of state-controlled intertextuality. For instance, Nazi mythology borrowed and shifted meaning from other pre-existing texts from across several cultures (i.e. runes). However, once the cultural pre-productive phase of borrowing or citing (i.e. choice, decision, defining consecutive processes and mechanisms), and the production phase (i.e. execution, implementation and preparing for publication) were established very few culturally unprocessed events (i.e. from the grassroots up or from beyond the nation’s cultural and political borders) of the kind would have been allowed. Even controlled and unidirectional parody seemed sanctioned towards specifically defined minority groups that were targeted and defined by the state apparatuses as undesirable or deviant.

One such well-known event was the Nazi art exhibition known as the ‘1937 Degenerative Art Exhibition’. The exhibition was used to strongly solidify a demarcation point separating art created by “mentally retarded”[45] and art offered by the sanctioned artist. Ironically, amongst various others, such historic events where censorship and copyright are clearly executed, dismissed or ignored (i.e. the degree of individual, collective, corporate or state ownership and to what extent, when, why and how a work is publicized) can themselves be used by us now and in the future as a reference or demarcation to compare any seemingly similar events or actions and to decide to which extent a fluid cultural approach is or can (not) be applied.

4.

To come back to the application of the spectrum: if the cultural object (i.e. art work) is more to the right-middle it will be constraint and guided by the conservation of property laws and market laws as defined by transnational corporations and their targeted global markets. This is a corporate form of gatekeeping in accordance to their corporate guidelines, their corporate DNA and the applicable laws such as those concerning intellectual property and thus specifically copyright laws. Similar hero-worshiping will exist though such worshiping will always shift towards branded copyrighted and trademarked objects with well-defined commercial values.

5.

If it is in the top left quadrant it will follow similar dynamics as those defined by corporations but rather they will be supervised and controlled by an individual. While such position might be more shunning any oversight from formal institutions or governmental regulations it will however consider competition and market value.

For the last two (4 and 5), if the object is considered to have no more market or a lack of sufficient commercial viability it will be shelved[46] and no longer accessible to a culturally open forum visited by another artist, a researcher, a student or a larger audience. For instance, a book can exist (somewhere) but no longer be (re)published. It therefor no longer exists publically. A music recording can be existent but no longer contained within a medium (i.e. a CD or even an mp3 on a storage technology). For all intense and purposes their cultural accessibility is reduced to zero and its aesthetic form is kept under private lock.

In the bottom two quadrant’s most extreme sense the deviation of the object into another similar or entirely innovative object is kept under lock and possibly stagnated. In a sense, this centrally controlled copyright enables the State as absolute owner.

Copyright in a sense enables any owner of any cultural object to legally enforce or invite any of such 5 or even more options as just hinted of.

Alternative communities (mainly those with fluidity into the left center or top left) have come up with different and more fluid approaches to copyright. They gave birth to copyleft, anti-copyright or to the innovative Creative Commons and its own set of more open rules. The Creative Commons are a globalized construct initiated by the law scholar, Lawrence Lessig. The latter suggests that copying and mixing, or thus in a general sense, appropriation is allowed if for instance the source is attributed and no commercial gain is made from the appropriation. Such initiatives, can be seen to have the intention to create a fluid ownership of the cultural and artistic attributes of certain objects. Artists can freely choose to participate in the offering of Creative Commons licenses to their larger audience and thus to a next generation of appropriationist art and artists. That generation has to again offer such openness, so does the generation after that, ad infinitum. At least theoretically this opens up the exponential opportunity for cultural and artistic produce. The question one can ponder about is whether such cultural objects would necessarily have an extensive aesthetic or other value. Surely, a counter argument can be constructed around a question involving the idea whether that is an essential attribute within this particular process.

One must be fair and share that even in the bottom two quadrants we can see appropriation and thus a form of fluidity. For instance, in the extreme forms of the left bottom version most if not all sanctioned artwork is appropriated cyclically by the state for propaganda, public health or public enlightenment purposes.

Both bottom quadrants also respect and even demand the appropriation of style and form by the apprentice from the master artist. At the early stages of the apprentice’s schooling the apprentice must appropriate the master’s guidelines, style and form without deviation or transformation, thus without error or innovation. The master’s identity unidirectionally flows to the apprentice. Seen from a distance, floating above all quadrants, such flow is rigorously fixed and not truly fluid in all imaginable directions.

From the point of view of the right bottom (and to a certain extent the right top) corner certain appropriation mechanisms engaged in within proponents of the left top (and to a certain extent bottom left) corner is considered a breach of legal rights resulting in theft of property (or piracy of such property).

Vice versa, the control of certain culturally valued objects by private ownership is by some seen as stifling innovation, cultural comments and public cultural identity. Such ownership might be considered, by some as what I define, from their perspective, as a form of ‘cultural hijacking.’ It might be perceived as cultural hijacking as the cultural object is forced to go in a different direction (i.e. a commercially viable one) from the one the public, community or the appropriating artist had intended or had felt it was, could or should be going. As such cultural formation and its mechanisms are neither fluid but more directional and more fixed.

To round my introduction into this much vaster Area I like to end with the following consideration that will tie us over into the next Area on Fluid Media. Currently, from 2011 into 2012, the US University at Buffalo organizes a series of cultural events, entitled ‘Fluid Culture’. The analogy is coincidental. Nevertheless, their focus is applicable to what I understand as Fluid Culture. Their website[47] states that

“Globalization can be described as a ‘space of flows.’  It operates by means of fluid movements of goods, information, people, and natural resources.  Communication between cultures and nations may be enhanced by this fluidity, and new technologies may become more readily available and accessible.”

Without examining the accessibility to any goods, services or cultural objects that might have vanished due to exactly the same dynamics, this statement might to a certain extent, hold some degree of truth. More interestingly to me is that the intercultural accessibility to imported cultural and technological objects might shift, deviate or transform the application of these same objects away from their originally intended usage  (i.e. meaning is also a form of usage) or even their secondary usage.  The manner in which an imported cultural, technological or other object is deconstructed, culturally transcoded and re-contextualized on a local level is indeed a fluid application into the local culture.

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AREA 4: Fluid Media

—

Shifting distinctions between ‘medium’, ‘media’, ‘technology’, ‘artistic tools’, ‘art’, ‘design’ and ‘content’ are exciting to debate about but more importantly can have huge differences in how we see design and artistic realities and apply primary or secondary processes within these realities. Perhaps, in this exploration here and for our purposes, it does not always have to be crystal clear nor static. Though, one or more definitions might be useful as steppingstones to begin an adventure towards perhaps a redefinition on an individual basis by the creative designer or artist (and scientist). Earlier I already gave some basic definition of technology and media. Here I will enrich those and offer a few different ones.

In Henri Jenkins 2006 book entitled Converging Culture, a medium is defined as “a technology that enables communication.” For the time being we can use this definition for our purposes here.

Secondly, and seemingly different, ‘medium’ is also understood as a group of rules on how to engage in cultural activities, or rather, “a set of associated ‘protocols’ or social or cultural practices that have grown up around the technology.” Media are cultural systems whereas technologies deliver the media. (Jenkins, 2006. p14) This definition is very useful for us when exploring fluidity of a medium.[48]

Jenkins continues by showing where fluidity is introduced (i.e. ‘to shift’, ‘to change’ means ‘to be fluid’) within ‘medium’. He states: “a medium’s content may shift [for instance, from radio into TV] its audience may change [for instance, in the past a certain medium might have been mainstream but now it is a niche medium. In the US this was for instance the case with comic books], and its social status may rise or fall [such as theater. It used to be a popular medium, today it is more elite].” However, I agree in principle that shifts do not replace that what has shifted. Rather, a variation, an iteration or other develops next to the source medium. This Jenkins states clearly when he writes that printed words did not kill spoken word. Cinema did not kill theater. Television did not kill radio. Each existing medium co-exists in dialog with the new medium. Simply, higher degrees of fluidity are introduced.

As such from an artistic or designer point of view it is possible to either take one or other stance. The stance can be your conviction or it can be an exercise in accordance to the targeted project, client, processes and goals:

1. “We use a technology or medium in the manner as it is sanctioned”
2. We use a technology or medium in their traditional manner formalized by my institution/master/teacher” or
3. “We use a technology or medium as it is sanctioned by the church/religious institution,” or
4. “I use the technology as I see best fit for my goals,” or
5. “I use the technology/medium unknowingly where it shall take me and without knowing the results. The result can be serendipitously obtained.”

Each expression or intention can be linked to one or other quadrant (in a larger or lesser degree) of the social spectrum we covered in AREA 1. I am sure by now it is obvious to which quadrant each could be associated with [if not: 1=>RB or LB, 2=>RB (or LB), 3=>RB, 4=>RT (or left), 5=> LT (or right)]. Of course, these are not set in stone.

As an exercise, imagine you are an archeologist who is also an artist. You are excavating a technological artifact. It might seem it is a technology that could deliver a medium. You have no idea what this artifact was exactly used for but you must assign it a function. Imagine this archeologist-artist assigns a function that is not the actual function of this media delivery technology. What do you think this different function could be? Imagine you are this archeologist-artist 3000 years in the future. Apply this story’s reality to an existing technology and apply the technology with the “faulty” functionality in the creation of a next work of art or design.  This is one way to approach fluidity of technology.

The archeology exercise is of course a playful but clarifying analogy. A form of fluidity of technology can be found when one thinks of an almost extinct media delivery technology (i.e. a phenakistoscope, a wax cylinder, a stereopticon, a telharmonium, etc). We might not know what each one of these delivery technologies were exactly or could exactly be used for. Without looking too much online or in other resources to know all of its past applications, one can imagine based on conjecture what it could be used for and assign it an imaginative yet present-day function that could result in a design or art work different from the designs or forms you have encountered up till now.

Fluidity in terms of ambiguity `was already hinted of when touching on nano-technology and the artistic initiatives that sprouted from it. The archeology exercise thus opens a platform for ambiguity. Remember, ambiguity is a shift (or fluidity) in meaning due to a changed context. The archeology exercise is an exercise of imagining a context and of intentionally imagining one that is not necessarily in line with a historical or factual context. Though the application and its result(s) can very well be factual (i.e. result in an artwork or design). Such exercise results in a ‘concrete fluidity’.

In similarity to the archeologist image, the question “what would happen if…” is equally important. Essentially the main question is: “what would happen if I’d apply this or that within a process that is normally applied for another object or another attribute or another intended result?” “What would happen to the object, to the attribute, to the process?” “What kind of result would I get?”

Consequentially such and other questions can lead you into evaluating whether you can formalize the new-found esthetic. The formalization is not one on an institutional level but rather on a personal individual and idiosyncratic level. Here formalization means you can form a positive answer to such questions as: “ can I repeat this odd association in the future?” “Can I create a similar outcome?” “Can the associations I forged either by accident or intentionally be verified and repeated within a different timespace?”

If formalization is not possible it is still not a loss. Randomness and a degree of uniqueness can be possible driving forces within the appreciation of a resulting design or artwork. If however formalization can be applied it is equally important at one point or other to deconstruct that formalization again if it is the principle intention to maintain a fluid approach towards technologies, the associated processes, application and results.

Although one might speak of fluid technology the actual fluidity lies in the artistic, creative and cultural application of and practices surrounding these technological tools. The technology is secondary. The application or practices surrounding these technologies turn our attention thus to fluidity of media. After all, remember the definition offered earlier: media is “a set of associated ‘protocols’ or social or cultural practices that have grown up around the technology.” You are the farmer of art and design. You sow and farm he ingredients of practices growing up around technologies. Either these are new ingredients or these are existing ones that you shift ever so slightly or ever so abruptly.

Katie Paterson’s transcoded Beethoven’s Sonata into Morse code received back as reflected from the Moon’s surface. The empty spaces show what was absorbed or lost during this galactic communication. Retrieved with email permission from the artist on June 15, 2012 from http://www.katiepaterson.org/eme/

An example of applying what I entitle as ‘shifted ingredients’ (i.e. a non-conformist association of attributes, an idiosyncratic applications of media and technologies, etc) can be discovered in the work by conceptual and cross-media artist, Katie Paterson.[49]  Katie Paterson is described by the UK’s Contemporary Art Society as an artist who’s practice is “multi-disciplinary, cross-medium, and conceptually driven, often exploring landscape by means of technology, and connectivity by way of moonlight, melting glaciers, and dead stars.”[50] In this particular case study Ms. Paterson appropriated Beethoven’s famous Moonlight Sonata, ripped an old media technology (i.e. Morse code and radio transmission) from its conventional application and applied stellar objects in a uncommon manner by bouncing Beethoven’s Sonata transcoded into Morse off the Moon’s surface. This resulted in a deviational appropriation of an existing work; an innovative iteration.[51]

This work, entitled Earth-Moon-Earth, is described by her as follows:

“Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, reflected from the moon’s surface via Earth–Moon–Earth radio transmission E.M.E (Earth-Moon-Earth) is a form of radio transmission whereby messages are sent in Morse code from earth, reflected from the surface of the moon, and then received back on earth. The moon reflects only part of the information back – some is absorbed in its shadows, ‘lost’ in its craters.

Returning to earth ‘fragmented’ by the moon’s surface, it has been re-translated into a new score, the gaps and absences becoming intervals and rests. In the exhibition space the new ‘moon–altered’ score plays on a self-playing grand piano.”

There are many other examples of shifting ingredients. Data mapping and the resulting metaphors are a system and a result of the act of shifting ingredients. For instance, Nathalie Miebach’s sculptural work “focuses on the intersection of art and science and the visual articulation of scientific observations.”[52] Basically the artist takes weather data and maps the resulting numbers into sculptures that visually represent a weather condition of one or other moment in spacetime.

Nathalie Miebach’s Warm Winter. Reed, wood, data, 6’x 5’x6’, 2007. “Using a base of 24 hours, this piece converts locally collected data (at Herring Cove) , with data from regional buoys (source: Gulf of Maine Observation System) and historical data (source: www.wunderground.com, NOAA and U.S. Naval Observatory). Data converted includes temperature (air, water, soil), wind speed and direction, tides and moon phases. The time frame translated is Dec 2006 – January 2007.” Retrieved from http://nathaliemiebach.com/weather07.html on March 01, 2012.

Earlier I mentioned the nano-technology scientist who turned into a visual artist by applying the results of his scientific work into artistic form. Work such as his is a relevant example of a fluid approach towards technology and media.  If we look at powerful microscopes (such as an electron microscope) not only as scientific tools but as stepping stones for aesthetic, design or artistic explorations we can see the potentials in its results such as the following macro-image.

 From specific areas within the political spectrum we looked at earlier we can realize that such images are handpicked or blocked by cultural and aesthetic gatekeepers defining rigidly what is art, what is design, what is content and which tools can be applied to create any one of these. From yet other points within that same spectrum some believe that any one of us can become or circumvent such gatekeeping and discover content, artistic steppingstones or forms for further design in various areas and by various means.

To come back to the earlier mentioned scientific tools being used as artistic or design resources one can have a look at the commercial products from Photodisc a stock photography business owning about 60000 images that now is part of Getty Images. In one of their products entitled as “Background Series Vol.20” they sold photographs categorized as “Electron Microscapes.” This was a new wording for ‘landscapes’ photographed through electron microscopy.

electron-microscapes (commercially sold by Photodisc / Getty Image). Image retrieved on September 19, 2012  from http://www.graphixshare.com/uploads/posts/2012-05-09/1336522333_photodisc-bs20-electron-microscapes.jpg

The combination of these technologies (i.e. nano-technology & electron microscopy) have even been applied for propagandistic sculptural design/art forms. Have a look at the ‘nanobamas.’ These are nano-sized depictions of the USA President Obama designed in 2008 by John Hart, Sameh Tawfick, Michael De Volder, and Will Walker.  “The nanobama faces are approximately 0.5 millimeter wide, or about ten times the width of a human hair… [they] are several times stronger and stiffer than steel.”[53]

An example of an electron microspcope. Retrieved on July 15, 2012 from http://uic.igc.gulbenkian.pt/images/microscopy/H-7650.JPG

John Hart’s Nano Bama. A process towards the design. Retrieved on August 14, 2012 from http://www.nanobama.com/how/nanobama-how_small.jpg

Surely one can contemplate in an over-simplistic manner whether an electron microscope, a telescope, a film camera and a photographic camera are all that different besides their prices, who has access to it and the objects they are pointed at. No matter however silly such comparison, interestingly enough one might conclude that within each of these technological objects the artistic properties lie in the intention and capacities of the users and observers. And, again we wish to focus on creating fluidity amongst the sets of “associated ‘protocols’ or social or cultural practices that have grown up around the technology.” This creates our fluidity of media.

Of course, one could argue not everyone has access to high-end technologies, morse code transmission or let alone the surface of a moon. The exuberance of one or other attributes is not a pre-requisite for the exploratory possibilities for creative, artistic or design purposes by shifting function, application and result of one or other media and technology attribute. In fact, low fidelity (as apposed to Hi-Fi or high-tech) as an attribute in applying media and technologies can be a signature of the artist as well as the art series or genre.

For instance, following a work is shown made by means of a flatbed scanner combined with a LED hand-held torch. The traditional rule of both a scanner and a torch is that you maintain whichever object you bring in contact with each of them as immobile as possible. The following work explored the shift of this preconception by moving objects while scanning. Secondly, a flatbed scanner is in general used to digitize non-digital objects such as documents or images. Here the media of text and image were replaced by moving light from the LEDs. The attribute linking LEDs and a flatbed scanner is at least the usage of light to capture an image within their respective contexts. Their respective contexts are: 1/ moving an object from obscurity in a dark room into a focus by means of converging light onto it versus 2/ moving an object from its analog tangible state to an intangible digitized state by means of data mapping it.

Understanding the technical, economic, socio-political or other contexts of who, how, why, when and where certain technology and media were historically applied can aid artists or designers to increase their critical and creative thinking skills. Such thinking skills can lead to alternative strategies that in turn can open the exploration and development of old practices intertwined with new processes related to the same or similar technologies and media in innovative present-day or future artistic and design applications.

New form can of course refer to old form. There are numerous examples of this throughout spacetime.

a screen shot from Cory Arcangel’s 2002 I Shot Andy Warhol. Retreived August 17, 2012 from http://ubu.artmob.ca/video/Arcangel-Cory_I-Shot-Andy-Warhol_2002.avi

One such example is Cory Arcangel’s  2002 “I Shot Andy Warhol” video game art work. The artist works within “the strict limitations and visual styles imposed by early digital technologies and media.”[54] He appropriated the old Nintendo code and reprogrammed this Entertainment System’s videogame cartridge entitled “Hogan’s Alley” into a new media art game filled with American cultural icons that would be easily recognizable at such low resolution. This work is an example of art purposely targeting low fidelity and thus using a technological idiosyncratic short-coming as an aesthetic and functional attribute.

In a sense Cory Arcangel follows Brian Eno’s: “when a technological limitation is lifted, accepting that limitation becomes a valid aesthetic choice.” It means at the time of the limited technology of Nintendo it was no choice to make the images have a low resolution. It simply was a technological limitation. Today we can choose thus Nintendo’s limitation becomes a Nintendo aesthetic for such artists as Cory Arcangel or Brian Eno.

Recently the concept of ‘transmedia narrative’ has entered the picture of fluid media as well. This type of approach to media focuses on storytelling. In short it offers the idea to take one art work or design and transcode as well as extrapolate on an element attribute or part of the initial artwork or design into a different artwork or design within a different medium.

For instance, imagine I take a oil painting depicting a scene in Beijing during the middle of the 20^th century. In one corner there is a minute flower. I target on this flower. I appropriate and digitize this flower and develop an entire new story about the flower, a boy who picks it and a girl who rejects the flower from the boy. I develop this within an the medium of animation. This is transmedia narrative. I believe however that this technique does not negate old technologies, old media or old ways of telling stories. It adds to them. This approach metaphorically makes the medium of oil painting fluid and adds possibilities within any targeted medium and technology.

In fact this concept is not really new (although it has been labeled as such only in the last 10 years  or so). We can see a surreal example of crossing media and technology at an early stage of television in the 1969 British Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ 25^th episode. A sketch entitled “Renaissance Masters” exhibits an example of how classic art works (i.e. old media) can be applied in (then) newer media (i.e. film) to tell a differentiating story based on one or other attribute of the initial work. In this sketch the characters in an oil painting step out of the painting and live their own stories.

Screenshots of the surreal 1969 BBC TV comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus—Episode 25, “Renaissance Masters” sketch

Henry Jenkins speaks of convergence culture in his likewise entitled 2003 publication with which he claims to mean:

“the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want… Convergence represents a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content” (Jenkins, 2003. p12).

Surely as artist and designer one can be influenced or even defined by these seeking consumers or one can create such fluidities that stimulate audiences (and hence consumers) to “seek connections among dispersed media content.”

To conclude, the text focused on a few examples that incorporated new and old technologies and media. Indeed fluidity is across space, across time, across technology and across media. Our contextualized individual conceptualizations, ideas, applications, actions, processes and results gauge the breadth by which this fluidity occurs.

This type of fluid approach towards media and technology can be re-injected into larger systems, systems of the urban setting, of the city and its citizens; of the ‘polis’ as we previously referred to the two combined. This brings me to the next and last AREA. AREA 5: Fluid Urbanism.

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AREA 5: Fluid Urbanism

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Fluidity across content, media and technology offers opportunities to appropriate attributes, thought-processes and insights from across each other. A metaphoric approach facilitates such fluidity. Such fluidity results in appropriation from one into the other and vice versa. Appropriation is centered at the de- and re-construction of artistic or design form; of the de- and re-construction of a rigid type of the creative real.

Firstly, from the perception of the information any one accumulates over the years and the knowledge that is distilled from it, one could state that one’s mind is a collection of appropriated meaning. One’s emotions, one’s thoughts, one’s fantasies, one’s imaginations, one’s sensory data, one’s neuro-chemical processes are bundled within him/herself and are his/her first medium. One’s mind is one’s private collection of media. My mind is my private sphere. Such individual collection overlaps in terms of similarity with that of others. The areas of similarity acquaint a minority or majority inter-personally resulting in memes. These memes are the architectural constructs allowing movement.

Secondly, one is amongst others. Thus, I too am amongst others. The others and I are a collection of citizens within each of our fixed, overlapping or more fluid communities, within the city.

The city is an appropriated form. The city is a public sphere. The city is simply a dead, stale and rigid structure if it is without our minds living within it. The city combined with our minds in process turns the city into an urban design. Architecture without the human interactive processes and systems is a forgotten tomb. The ultimate city is the city of the now catering to the needs of its present and participatory citizens; dwelling, passing-by, visiting, rooting, floating, and transiting. The city is the extrinsic manifestation of being amongst others.

Thirdly, one’s mind, mine or that of others and our versions of urbanity form the overarching urban setting that can only exist in more or less beautiful struggle if these variables consist of intertwining and fluid positive space, negative space and conscious space. What one sees as the background, foreground and thus the meaning of these urban settings are not identical across other citizens or across spacetime. Thus the three spaces are in fluid relation to the architectural physicality of the urban setting.

The positive spaces are at least the structures within the urban design, the negative spaces are at least the space between theses structures. The two spaces are never truly distinguishable. Ideally, and catalyzed by the various conscious spaces, they concretely or metaphorically flow into one another.

A practical application of approaching positive, negative and conscious space within urban design as catalysts of its fluidity could be found by converging media as integral parts of the urban structural design, its aesthetic, its form and its functionality. The concept of the “Smart City” is one such larger scale example.

Vito Acconci. Retrieved December 15, 2011 from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Vito1973.jpg

An artistic (and surreal) application of approaching positive, negative and conscious space within urban design as catalysts of its fluidity can be found within Vito Acconci’s 2001 architectural sound poem, The Bristol Project. It is a splendid example of metaphoric fluidity of attributes from one object flowing into those attributes of another object within a fictitious urban design. One can hear this 50 or so minutes long immersive piece in its entirety online. [55]

Such fluid urban setting is designed into a polis of our own individual making. The polis is the body of citizens. It is the group of those who are mindful of the urban mechanisms. They are the ones who move within and recreate the dynamics of the polis. They are the city in becoming.

Fourthly, the polis appropriates. It can absorb the constructs of the mind; creating images that are virtual within the tangible materials of the architectural and technological surrounding.

Such fluidity across seemingly separate units is often referred to as convergence. However, it is not simply a convergence of things, it is not simply a convergence of technology. It is a convergence of meaning, content and media. It is a convergence of culture. It is a convergence of mind, architectural structure, community, and contemporary urbanity that is at times open to intertwine with the rustic.[56] It juggles and interchanges negative space, positive space and conscious space. The city, the urban design, the polis, the metropolis is paradoxically nomadic if we offer it the fluidity of our conscious spaces.

Here I subscribe to what Henry Jenkins describes as follows:

“Convergence does not occur through media appliances, however sophisticated they may become. Convergence occurs within the brains of individual consumers and through their social interactions with others. Each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information extracted from the media flow and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives.”(Jenkins, 2003, p4)

Considering the convergence while coming back to the conscious space in relation to the architectural settings of the polis I am reminded of Walter Benjamin. Specifically the following passage from The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is of use here:

“Distraction and concentration form polar opposites which may be stated as follows: A man who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it. He enters into this work of art the way legend tells of the Chinese painter when he viewed his finished painting. In contrast, the distracted mass absorbs the work of art. This is most obvious with regard to buildings. Architecture has always represented the prototype of a work of art the reception of which is consummated by a collectivity in a state of distraction.” (Benjamin, 1936. XV. Retrieved December 15, 2011 from http://www.virtual-circuit.org/word/pages/Benjamin/Benjamin_Work.html )

Although distraction is a highly useful tool to interrupt a flow for reevaluation or to provide it with feedback, however, as part of the larger conscious space, it is only as powerful as one’s concentration is strong. Consciousness cannot exist without concentration as well as it cannot exist without the ability to consciously interrupt or be interrupted. Here the concept I offer uses a concept similar to that of Benjamin’s as a stepping stone and moves further allowing the potential for the individual citizen to be aware of space, to be aware of the negative and positive spaces one is immersed within and to be aware as oneself being space (and not as only occupying space). The citizen enters and exits overlapping spaces. When the citizen is aware of the continuous osmosis, he or she becomes the space. The citizen and the polis become intertwined if and when there is not only immersion within the city or interaction with the polis’ media but rather if there is an osmosis on a conscious level between the citizen’s mentality and his/her flow with the polis. This becoming invites an fluid urbanism.

Let’s return to Benjamin. He continues by stating:

“Buildings are appropriated in a twofold manner: by use and by perception – or rather, by touch and sight. Such appropriation cannot be understood in terms of the attentive concentration of a tourist before a famous building. On the tactile side there is no counterpart to contemplation on the optical side. Tactile appropriation is accomplished not so much by attention as by habit. As regards architecture, habit determines to a large extent even optical reception. The latter, too, occurs much less through rapt attention than by noticing the object in incidental fashion. This mode of appropriation, developed with reference to architecture, in certain circumstances acquires canonical value. For the tasks which face the human apparatus of perception at the turning points of history cannot be solved by optical means, that is, by contemplation, alone. They are mastered gradually by habit, under the guidance of tactile appropriation.” (Benjamin, 1936. XV. Retrieved December 15, 2011 from http://www.virtual-circuit.org/word/pages/Benjamin/Benjamin_Work.html )

Here Benjamin has neither been the starting point for either “conscious space” nor for “appropriation” as concepts for this text. Having the concepts of conscious space and of appropriation before us his narrative can however function as an autonomous reference (amongst many more; i.e. see the political spectrum) where similarities, analogies and metaphors can be strengthened and thus meaning can be, ever so slightly, shifted. Now to concretely refer to the citation here, habit is obviously part of the urban experience though one, as a “user,” can enrich habit by means of revisiting the spaces in a conscious manner (thus shifting from “user” into “participant”) not simply in a physical or purely functional manner. The appropriation can be seen to happen from various directions. Benjamin’s mentioned appropriation is one direction. Another is the citizen being appropriated by the polis much like Benjamin refers to the man being absorbed by the artwork.

I now associate Benjamin with Jenkins and look deeper into the concept of convergence (Jenkins, 2003, p4). Convergence is perhaps neither conscious nor entirely controlled by the artist, citizen-user or citizen-inter-actor. However, due to the convergence and its implied multitude of possible selections of information streams (visual, tactile, auditory, etc), across media carrying technologies (i.e. screen, intercom, bluetooth, headphone, projection, etc) and intertwining with fluid media cultures, convergence does provide the possibility to assign shifting values to shifting senses.

Although habit plays an enormous and inevitable part in our (or any living being’s) ability to function smoothly and to use our tools[57] citizen-artists’ habit[58] can be interrupted by means of concentration on the possibilities for shifts and cross-pollination in regards to senses creating the multi-sensorial action, experience, interaction and participation that lead towards a convergence  of media and meaning. The awareness of the conscious space provides a potential tool to offer a feedback loop towards habitual action. Therefor (even if momentarily) conscious use and perception might slightly increase where habitual action without evaluation might slightly decrease.

Habit[59], which tends to be an unquestioned set of meaning, can thus receive the option to be redefined, enriched or shifted. Our subdued senses (i.e. anything else but sight) might become boosted or reactivated and their degree of habitual attributes might become (even if momentarily) decreased to make place for a slight increase (for a unknown duration in spacetime) in conscious interaction. Repetitive implementation of creatively different executions of such appropriation and convergence can perhaps increase the duration such conscious space is experienced; perhaps not. It is, I believe, worth the effort.

This might mean when the architect (or, in general, an artist) changes or adds attributes within the positive as well as negative space of a building (or the general work of art with more or less functionality than a building), the habit might be shifted from the less conscious to the potentially more conscious. The citizen, almost like a baby using the tactility of the mouth for the first time to explore, might become gently (or abruptly) interrupted in their one-dimensional approach towards the building (or work of art) and made conscious of the sensory possibilities the spaces have to offer. Thus the functionality of the building might shift. The opportunity for usage is increased. While the instigating artwork (and its building blocks or references) might remain, its poetically important uselessness (yes, uselessness is important) the application of such approach might shift the bias from a creation otherwise perceived as unattractive to one that becomes noticeable (and to some it might shift from “useless” to “useful”).

The perception of one’s urbanity, or one’s becoming in the polis, is shifted while momentarily being immersed within the one building or the one artwork. Those who move around the negative space, shift negative space into positive space, positive space into negative space, and move from one into the other and back again. The building now has the opportunity to become a source for multi-sensory appropriation and media convergence. The mobile “phone,” the iPad, the painting is no longer necessarily disconnected from the building but rather continued or shifted into the building and vice versa. The building is absorbed by the art work, by the media and by the polis.

Fifthly, Fluid Urbanism also implies urbanism beyond the tangible territories as we knew them in history into the intangible realm of the virtual or at least of the augmented or of a combination thereof. As a case study I find the work of Chinese new media artist Cao Fei in her RMB City to be an applicable example of the idea at hand. RMB City is a virtual artist interpretation of Beijing. It is a 3D architectural construct launched in 2008 within the virtual online world of Second Life.  The ultimate fluid urbanity is one that no longer and incorrectly confuses tangible with ‘real’ or that of the hardness of brick, concrete, steel and glass versus the intangible with ‘not real’ or that of bits and bites, ones and zeros. RMB City is a “laboratory for investigations in art, design, architecture, literature, cinema, politics, economy, society, and beyond.” According to the artist it functions as a “model of avant-garde urban planning, it traverses the boundaries between past and future, [the physical] and virtual to link China and the cosmopolitan contemporary world.”[60]

[Insert soundscapes][Insert examples of interactive media used in architectural settings][INSERT digital signage][INSERT the dystopian Minority Report]

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CONCLUSION

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We moved from metaphors, poetry and related linguistic elements into a poetic approach towards the social (or the non-party political). We have taken this bird’s-eye view on socio-political perceptions and associated these with what I label as ‘fluidities’ (i.e. mechanisms such as association of attributes) across space, culture, and the urban setting. We have folded these onto one another.

All that stated; now, go back to our cloud.

Instead of picking a drop from the cloud and putting it elsewhere, now take the cloud and put it into the drop. Take the ocean and put into the drop. Take all the multi-verses and put it into the drop.

During this narrative we defined—perhaps redefined—and possibly opposed certain offered definitions. We might have slightly altered our views or approaches towards media, technology, social processes, identities, etc. From personal experiences reaching far beyond this narrative or from the inter-personal interactions hinted here, we might have noticed we want or even need to be defined. I aimed to offer (the hint of) a paradox in the idea that—although we try, to be submitted to definition and even embrace definition—we are unable to absolutely define something or someone in a fixed manner; it is questionable (at least from a scientific point of view) whether we should. Moreover, sometimes we even wish to escape those definitions that are perceived as to be forcing a singular form onto us (as defined by social memes, legalities, (artistic) media and technologies considered appropriate or not). I offered the question to the why that is? Obviously, there is not one answer to this.

Though, I believe to have pointed into at least one direction of a possible answer. I have pointed at the struggle between ‘fluidities’ and demarcations within specific areas that are of relevance to artists and designers. The areas of space, the areas of culture intertwined with law, the areas of the social perception intertwined with the ‘polis’ or the concepts we refer to and which support or (willingly) constrain our functioning as individuals, communities or collectives.

This applies to the arts and to design in such manner that, those forms one comes up with are defined or undefined (i.e. are fluid) depending on our individual, relational or collective need to stick to the demarcations or, to add on to those or, thirdly, to deviate from those. One might notice simultaneously that sticking to the targeted demarcations does not guarantee there shall be no additions to them nor deviations (away from them) that are coming from one’s other activities as an individual or that are coming from other individuals or from communities. To be able to consciously perceive the collection of all these dynamics without too large a fear (i.e. a fear resulting in a need of dismissal of parts of that collection of dynamics) might offer (and in my experience offers) a larger creative, emotional, intellectual and innovative space to pick conceptual artistic or design forms and materials from.

Earlier in this text I posed the question(s):

Can we find or develop an overarching shift in consciousness?

• Can this shift…
  • maximize (ever so slightly) one’s mental access and give insights
  • into the potential (fantasy of) identities and
  • offer views on any of their undeveloped multi-sensorial perceptions as well as
  • unveil possible and latent definitions intermingled or dissolved within these (im)possible identities
  • Can we find these even if we were only to focus on those infinities within artistic human endeavors?
  • Can one simultaneously anticipate possible (dis-)advantage of engaging in such shift?

The text has pointed at doors that can further maximize access and insights. It is up to each one of us to open the metaphorical doors. Following this we can decide the degree of exploring every angle, space or directions that lie behind these doors. The doors were that of comparison of our daily act to that of larger systems (i.e. multiverses, elements such as clouds). This brings us to another door, the conscious existence and influence of metaphors, associations of attributes, etc. Yet other doors are the 5 Areas I suggested with the socio-political spectrum as the most influential one; as it influences the other 4 Areas I introduced. These are access points. I know and am convinced there are far more. This mental travel through imagined spaces offers access to possible (re-)definition and thus to identities.

Following I pointed at the multi-sensorial nature of sensory data (and the following perceptions). What would be the (dis-)advantage of thinking in terms of multi-sensorial approaches to our environment?  We can apply an approach that is inclusive rather than dismissive. The mere truism remains that our brain collects (intuitively) stimuli as data via several sensory pathways. The perceptions thereof are even more complex as it is not unfair to assume these would be associations of the sensory data with whichever ‘data’ (i.e. insights, knowledge, memes, cultural text distilled from various symbol systems, etc) one has neurologically stored in one’s brain. Thus the integrative implications of the multi-sensorial is a valid direction to take if we truly consider our work to have human an not alienating qualities while catering towards others (human and other species). One cannot speak of a holistic experience if a singular sense is targeted. Even as an artist or designer within one specific medium (i.e. one mainly targeting one or other sense; for instance the visual) this way of consciousness can be considered opening the possibilities for a different concept or idea to evolve, either as stepping stone or as the start for the creation of itself in tangible form. This can offer additional artistic or design considerations if not values or perhaps even shifted paradigms that would otherwise remain hidden.  That what is thus hidden are those “possible and latent definitions intermingled or dissolved within these (im)possible identities’ I mentioned previously. It might already be sufficiently clear that one can find these even if one were only to focus on artistic (or better, read ‘poetic’) human endeavors.

I pondered on whether such approach could have advantages and disadvantages.  It is my hypothesis both sets shall be present. The advantages are explored within the whole text; simply put, one might appreciate the intellectual, spiritual, creative and intangible enrichment (with possible tangible economic returns via resulting innovations). The disadvantages could be one gets lost (as in, loss of identity and direction) and gets stuck in fear that this solid identity and linear direction is of the essence to sustain sanity, success, respect and other social values (that are also applied as social pressures). One might feel alienated from the surrounding dominating, common mainstream social, cultural and even political ways.  That is ok. Not everyone should feel any obligation in relation to the offered concepts and views. To agree with the disadvantages does not mitigate the explorations of this poetic text but rather adds to one or other quadrant of the existing socio-political spectrum.

This text, as I made explicit, is poetic in nature, It was neither in search of truth nor of exactness. It is in search of offering catalyzing metaphors (and its implied associations) one might understand, sense and embrace as enabling within the design or artistic processes and systems available or under construction

The end of this text might have brought some to a beginning of a becoming; I am well aware this is but a naïve idea I can only (now less-) secretly nurture.

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FOOTNOTES

[2]      See Marcuse, Herbert. (1964, 2007). One-Dimensional Man. Studies  in  the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. New York: Routledge.

[3] The author’s pseudonym is ‘animasuri’ (or ‘anima suri’)

[4]      A matrix is an environment or material in which something develops; it is a surrounding medium or structure.

[5] The environment resulting from acts of telling one narrative, or creating one identity copied into various media (perhaps minor differences are implemented within a few media). It can refer to the distribution of the same content across several platforms.

[6]  This is the (participatory) environment (i.e. a collection of potential experiences) resulting from acts of constructing multiple (more or less related) narratives and creating (more or less) associated identities into various media. The acts are intertextual. These acts can be linear but tend to be non-linear in nature. These acts could occur simultaneously though tend to be across (tangible or intangible) space and time. All acts amount to a networked narrative universe enriching the perceptions and experiences of participants/ producers and audiences. It is a responds and an integration of various sign systems’ cultural texts (i.e. painting, animation, sculpture, video, podcasts, games, sound, music, choreography, print, color coding, geometric forms, architecture, digital or analog media, etc) into a networked whole.

[7] Ugliness as well as fearfulness are aesthetic qualities capable of generating feelings of (highly) increased emotion, but which via the alteration of spacetime “decay” to become a pleasurable experience. I loosely follow Edmund Burke’s philosophy on the beautiful and the sublime where the former is pleasing and the latter implies a power to overwhelm to the degree of the destructive. See Burke, E. (1757). A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Retrieved on January 13, 2012 from http://www.bartleby.com/24/2/

[8] Obviously there have been processes around for decades (and longer) such as brainstorming processes, lateral thinking processes, concept mapping processes, creative and problem solving processes, critical analysis processes (i.e. SWOT, 5 Ws) etc.

[9] D.Sutton, D.Martin Jones (eds). (2008). Deleuze Reframed.A Guide for the Arts Student,. London: I.B.Tauris

[10] D.Sutton, D.Martin Jones (eds). (2008). Deleuze Reframed.A Guide for the Arts Student,. London: I.B.Tauris

[11] categorization is a general word implying the action to provide a collection of bordered off  identities and definitions

[12] To ‘condensate’ is also a term used in psychology as “the fusion of two or more images, ideas, or symbolic meanings into a single composite or new image, as a primary process in unconscious thought exemplified in dreams.” (Oxford Dictionary).

[13] Although there are attributable denotational links between ‘proper’, ‘property’, ‘appropriate’ and ‘to appropriate’, the understanding of the distinctive (connotative) meaning of ‘to appropriate’ in the realm of culture and arts is essential. Despite the fact that the explanation is not comprehensive, Wikipedia does provide some introduction on ‘appropriation art.’ Routledge published works touching the matter as well. One such work is written by Julie Sanders and published in 2006 under its New Critical Idiom category entitled Adaptation and Appropriation. In short here ‘to appropriate’ targets the taking of cultural or artistic form for one’s own cultural comments or creative outputs. Typically, ownership is implied or questioned and to artistically or culturally appropriate that owned cultural or artistic form means the usage of it is often engaged in without the owner’s permission.

[14] For this and related ideas I refer those who wish further in-depth study to the work by Deleuze  & Guattari on ‘territorialization’ and to the work by Homi Bhabha in the 1994 or later reprinted publication entitled The Location of Culture.

[15] Of course, the artist functions as a scientist creating an enabling technology (i.e. the ambiguous style of the visuals) to actually make it possible for me to enter interactively into Alice’s Wonderland.

[16] Lakoff, G and Mark Johnson. (2003). Metaphors We Live By. London: The university of Chicago press. p 4

[17] The Oxford Dictionary’s definition for “ cliché.”

[18] More information can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multisensory_integration or at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossmodal

[19]  Source: Podcast: BBC World Service—Discovery. (2011). Exchanges at the Frontier 2011: Doctor Vilayanur Ramachandran. Retrieved from iTunes Store on December 4,  2011. More information can be found here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilayanur_S._Ramachandran

[20] I do not necessarily nor specifically refer to Le Corbusier’s Purism, as an artistic style emphasizing purity of geometric form but rather to the “scrupulous or exaggerated observance of or insistence on traditional rules or structures.” (Oxford Dictionary)

[21] As I mentioned previously, here “poem” shall not simply refer to “a piece of writing” but rather to anything that “arouses strong emotions because of its beauty.” (Oxford Dictionary).

[22] The construct of ‘mental forum’ nicely denotes one or more mental places as media where artistic and creative ideas and views can be born, grown, floated around and exchanged.

[23] A quote from Sol LeWitt on Conceptual Art in “Sentences on Conceptual Art”. Art-Language, Coventry, vol. 1, no. 1, May 1969.

[24] ‘Identity’ here refers to its common denotation: “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is” (Oxford Dictionary)

[25]    A matrix is an environment or material in which something develops; it is a surrounding medium or structure.

[26]                   I do not need to care about one or other institution. I do not need to care about present-day polemics.

[27] I agree with Sol LeWitt when he states: “the concept and idea are different. The former implies a general direction and the latter are the components. Ideas implement the concept.” He continues by stating that “ideas alone can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical.”LeWitt, Sol (1969). “Sentences on Conceptual Art”. Art-Language, Coventry, vol. 1, no. 1, May 1969:

[28] For more information on this ‘land’ please enjoy an insane visit to http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Lalaland . Please note this is NOT famous/notorious wikipedia. It is an ironic (or add your own stronger superlative) website that claims to offer a “giant mass of misinformation.”

[29] ‘cornered’ or ‘to corner’ here means to be forced to have corners (or nooks) and plays with its formal meaning of “to be cornered into,” meaning to  “force (a person or animal) into a place or situation from which it is hard to escape.” I further play and create the new verb “to nook.” “to be idea-nooked.”

[30] This is an obvious English expression that means one thinks in an original or creative manner.

[31] Here ‘instill’ is used metaphorically and means to put a substance—here ‘poetic form’ as if it were in the form of liquid drops— into the spectrum— as if this were a container.

[32] Serendipity is different from chance in that it does imply a prepared framework and it does imply formal processes and systems but it also implies outcomes that were influenced by variables of which the unanticipated accidental information or subjective results were intuitively accepted and not rationally dismissed; (for those eager to dig even deeper have a look at contra-serendipitous processes ironically labeled as ‘Zemblanity’ and ‘bahramdipity’).

[33] Sol LeWitt is the founder of conceptual art as well as minimalism.

[34] Lawrence Lessig—a well-known Professor at the Harvard Law School—up till about 2007 he has been on the forefront of this exciting movement known as ‘free culture’. He is the founder of the copyright alternative known as the Creative Commons as well as the founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. As such he is an essential reference as outspoken academic on law and specifically copyright in relation to the digital media (i.e cyberspace). Currently he focuses less on copyright-related matters. Many of his resources are legally and freely downloadable from the internet. Find more details on www.lessig.org  or on www.freeculture.org

[35] a transformation makes “some contribution of new intellectual value and thereby [fosters] the advancement of the arts and sciences.” See the August 2005 Blanche v. Koons court decision. LOUIS L. STANTON, U. S. D. J. (2005). court case 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26299. Andrea Blanch vs. Jeff Koons. New York: Untied States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Retrieved Feb. 15, 2012 from http://tinyurl.com/6tapn6p

[36] see previous footnote on Lawrence Lessig.

[37] Retrieved on February 15, 2012 from http://questioncopyright.org/ as posted by Nina Paley on 31 Jan 2012 as crossposted from www.Techdirt.com under the heading “Copying Is Not Theft, But Censorship Is.”

[38] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IeTybKL1pM4 shows ‘Copying is not Theft’ in a cute animated manner. The animation and song are by Nina Paley, the arrangement is by Nik Phelps and the vocals by Connie Champagne.

[39]  Retrieved on February 15, 2012  from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcvd5JZkUXY&feature=player_embedded embedded within http://questioncopyright.org/minute_memes/all_creative_work_is_derivative. All Creative Work Is Derivative (Minute Meme #2) was created by Nina Paley and is part of the Minute Memes Series. It was supported by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts.

[40] Retrieved on February 15, 2012 from http://questioncopyright.org/minute_memes/all_creative_work_is_derivative under the sub-heading ‘Why’.

[41] The image of the Coca Cola bottle or even the actual bottles have been appropriated on several occasions for artistic and thus cultural purposes. Andy Warhol is one such artist who used the form as a basis for a larger theme.

[42] LOUIS L. STANTON, U. S. D. J. (2005). court case 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26299. Andrea Blanch vs. Jeff Koons. New York: Untied States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Retrieved February 15, 2012 from http://tinyurl.com/6tapn6p

[43] ‘Intertextuality’ is a term referring to the forming of the meaning of a text (or a cultural object such as a work of art) beyond the meaning within the text itself but rather by many other texts (or cultural objects). Julia Kristeva (feminist, philosopher, novelist and  critic) first used it in 1966. It was consecutively quasi infinitely redefined by others.

[44] Heller, Steven. (2008). Iron Fists. Branding the 20^th-century totalitarian state. London: Phaidon. p. 33

[45] ” The definition of ‘retarded’ or ‘degenerate’ was certainly not scientific and intended to include several perfectly healthy artists. Additionally, it is interesting to know that healthy in this historic art example meant to be ‘German’, a term which itself had a very specific and exclusive meaning.

[46] Figuratively used: to decide not to proceed with (a project or plan) the publicizing of an (art or cultural) object, either temporarily or permanently.

[47] Retrieved on February 15, 2012 from http://www.humanitiesinstitute.buffalo.edu/initiatives/fluid_culture_series.shtml

[48]  the Latin plural for ‘medium’ is ‘media.’

[49] http://www.katiepaterson.org/eme/

[50] http://contemporaryartsociety.org/become-a-member/artist-member/katie-paterson/398

[51] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIYQtgZ_Cho

[52] http://nathaliemiebach.com/statement.html

[53] http://www.nanobama.com/how/how.htm

[54] http://www.virtual-circuit.org/art_cinema/Arcangel/Shot.html

[55] http://www.dilandau.eu/download_music/vito-3.html

[56]    Here I mainly refer to the architectural concept of a structure made “with rough-hewn or roughened surface or with deeply sunk joints.” It is a reference to something that is “constructed or made in a plain and simple fashion.” Although these citations from the Oxford Dictionary do not imply it I add that the rustic is also a conscious space opposing the hyper-production of the cultural products where objects, agents, actors and other attributes seem calculated as to offer an impeccable polish. In its most extreme even a speck of dust or “dirt” would be consciously placed, and virtually clean. The rustic somehow offers a counterweight to this extreme while urbanity offers a counterweight towards the extremes found within the rustic.

[57]               i.e. meaning, art, content, media and technology.

[58]               i.e. that of designers, architects or other

[59]               Habit is related to custom, practice, routine, pattern, convention, norm, tradition and rule.