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A most radical normalcy:
Arts evolutionary role in our social lives.. 
digital study : North of the highway 2012
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A most radical normalcy: Arts evolutionary role in our social lives. . Our definition of what it is that defines us as human, seems to have shifted constantly over the ages. From the tool maker to the language speaker. We have a tendency to redefine what makes us us, instead of including others whom we discover fit into that prior definition. Its almost as if we need to find our unique and very own niche in the world. A niche which makes us utterly distinct and that we can use to define ourselves as at the top of some pinnacle of achievement compared to all other life forms… What I propose here for consideration, isn't just another replacement of that definition of what makes us human, or civilized. Rather, it's more to give an extension to the horizon of what we identify as part of our characteristics. Not another definition of us, but another aspect to include within our "personality" of being human. Others lifeforms may, and I believe do, share this aspect of being, although I would suggest we push apply it quite a bit farther afield then most species. Simply put, the suggestion herein is that humanity has a built in propensity to skip between realities, hop scotching between multiple paradigms of reality, and holding up for consequent consideration and juxtaposition the resulting paradoxes between their paradigms. This skipping between multiple paradigms, is based upon what I consider to be our innate capability to temporarily suspend reality for another reality. Play and evolution: Consider how we do this shift of realities within our play, sports, humour and the arts. Across nations, across cultures, across languages, across social status, even across species, and regardless of predator or prey, Play is a common aspect of growing up -especially for mammals. It is rather astonishing when you consider it. At a time - infancy- when one is at the greatest risk of danger, of not knowing the rules of the game so to speak, we seemingly whittle away the time in these frivolous pursuits... Yet, regardless of how meaningless play appears at first blush, it flows across the generations through our genes, and so probably is of significant advantage to us in order for it to still remain. Likely what it offers us, is the immense benefit of being able to learn those rules of the game which we haven’t yet acquired when novice. It affords us the opportunities, without yet being in the game, of apprehending and mastering the game... Play, Games, and Sports. All extensions of the same aspect. They let us use the rules of the game (of our reality) in isolation, with a minimal risk of permanent damage or loss from those same rules. Hence we can more easily learn of these rules and master them, without being under their current judgement . In effect, Play implicitly acknowledges that this is a time out from reality. It is a suspension of reality so that we can learn about and apprehend the reality that we have just suspended. It gives us a distance to see reality through the suspension. Play's rules protect the participants from our realities repercussions while learning of our reality. Within the protected realm of play, within its suspension of our reality, we better equip ourselves for our own reality where the risks are real and even possibly life threatening. Plays parameters. Yet play can be considered play, only when the participants clearly know that a temporary suspension of reality has occurred, so as to accept the play realm's reality and rules. The skills we develop in that play realm are transferable back to our reality. Play benefits the participants mostly in this suspending and un-suspending of the realities. The benefit occurs afterwards, via the moving back and forth between the play realm to our reality. In essence, daydreaming without applying those discovered creative insights back into our reality is of little evolutionary advantage. This essential 'bringing back of insights', and experience, is why this suspension of reality is temporary. You are there to acquire a new mastery of some skill for living with within our reality. Remaining and excelling in the land of play is not the goal. This bringing back something which will be of value is also why the temporary suspension of reality is also voluntary. To be coerced into another paradigm, doesn't leave the participant the capacity to move back and forth between the suspended reality and our reality. Being hostage in another reality is extremely dangerous. Play is but a suspension of the rules of reality, it doesn't negate reality. Reality's dangers are still real and a play participant needs the ability to move back without effort to our reality in case of danger or want. Play, as much fun as it may be, is above all, an act of shared trust. Play must be a voluntary and temporary suspension of reality. For play to be of any evolutionary benefit, the participants must return to reality.. If we weren't interested in bringing back some benefit, we move towards sports which I would propose is a formalized play. In sports we are more interested in what occurs within the realm of play, then what we may bring back as participants. The difference being in play we ultimately better ourselves in this our reality, where in sports, the betterment is for the most part left within the assumed reality. Both are based on suspending our reality's rules for another set of rules One brings essentially entertainment, the other personnel growth. Skipping between realities without losing ones orientation. So if we are prone to skipping between realities, and since being able to get back from an assumed reality is crucial in terms of social benefit. How do we not get lost in daydreams and mental delusions with all this jumping around? Surprisingly , we humans have developed a specific skill for recognizing these transfers from one reality to the next and take considerable joy in practising and exercising its usage. Our humour is grounded on this capacity to recognize differences in realities and determining which is home. A joke is only funny if you can perceive it. You need the where with all to recognize the particular paradigm shift that all humour is based on. Why did silly billy take a ladder to school? As a child, recognizing silly Billy's error of confounding the paradigm of the word high in high-school with height gives the key to finding the correct paradigm that he should be in. The folly of silly Billy’s paradigm is evident to most. By a capacity to juggle two paradigms of the world at once, and to rightfully distinguish which is more valid, we rejoice in laughter! Its our ability to discern the correct reality out of that presented, is where our laughter is born. We know we are home, in the correct reality. There would be no humour in this riddle if we were to find out that the staircases were broken at silly Billy's high school and he needed the ladder so as to climb to the second floor for his classes. It's in our ability to uncover the differences between two realities, our reality and the jokes premise, that humour is grounded in. We delight in getting back to the right reality. Dangers in not returning from an assumed reality. This ability of ours to temporarily suspend reality for another, grow within that assumed reality and return to ours bettered is also found in our arts. For every art is experienced only as a voluntary and temporary suspension of our reality. We of necessity assume the arts reality with its own given and coherent set of paradigms. If art forgoes these conditions, voluntary, temporary, suspension of reality for another, then it fails as art. It becomes something else entirely. Art that is not experienced as voluntarily becomes propaganda bordering on totalitarianism. Both are a suspension of reality, but neglecting the temporary and voluntary aspects. The war of the worlds broadcast, was not adequately declared as art, nor recognized as fiction. This not recognizing it as an assumed reality, lead to panic and mayhem, not to personal insight. The same work, read and studied as a work of fiction allows insight into our dependencies and assumptions. Read voluntarily, it broadens our horizons. Imposed as reality, it proffered no insights to the participants and damaged the lives of those experiencing it as one could not juxtapose the two realities to benefit. Art that is not experienced as temporary, binds us into its reality. Addiction and mental delusions also lack these two key aspects when suspending reality Drug induced highs' addictive heresy is one's dependence on them to the exclusion of our actual reality. We can gain no insights into their paradigms of being that might be of significant value to our reality as we cannot find our way back to our correct reality in order to make use of the paradigms which might be discovered there. The user has become delusional, detached form society and lost to our common reality. Art is grounded on similar aspects as play. It is a great risk on the viewers part to accept this other reality being offered. Art is not about deception, it is about a voluntary temporary suspension of reality. So why do we take such risks with art and assume arts different paradigms of being? Arts moving measure - the paradigm shift Whereas play can be shown to allow us to learn and master the skills necessary for adulthood, (whatever these may be), arts suspension of reality instead permits us insight into our actual lived paradigm of reality. For the most esteemed arts this isn’t just about any insight, but insight into how our paradigms have shifted in society. Art doesn't really lead change, it simply announces the loudest and clearest the change that is already occurring to us. The art we value takes as its measure the paradigm shifts of society. Societies over time change, sometimes deliberately, other times because of internal or outside influences. Influences such as environmental ones, droughts, inundations, increased solar radiation all force society to adjust in order to survive or thrive. Harold Innis has shown clearly how technology too significantly changes our social reality. The printed word gave rise to the printed book and individual reading and critique, which shattered the unquestioned obedience to the readings of the Catholic church. Cars gave rise to mobile private spaces, leading to social upheavals from the sexual revolution to suburban spread and subsequent infrastructure collapse. Which ever technology we have adopted, it has always unconsciously and without exception, changed our ways of interacting with the world. This change of interaction with the world has re-circumscribed how we know of the world, and so changed how we understand the world. Technology shifts without preamble or permission our social paradigms of the world. It modifies us unconsciously. With usage: Every way of being becomes a way of knowing. It is these unspoken shifts of our reality that art talks of. It lets us step out momentarily from our reality to see our new paradigm as embodied in the arts reality. Hence we can return to our reality to recognize these changed paradigms and so choose to either accept or reject them in our daily lives. (it is easier to see differences elsewhere, then within oneself) Social revolution explored outside of our reality, with minimal risk of being enslaved to the new paradigm's insight Hence Art acts as a counterbalance to technology. It speaks aloud of a way of being, allowing us to act in accordance or not with this paradigm when we return to our reality. Art is the corollary to technology. Turning on its head technologies influence to become: Every way of knowing, becomes a way of being. Change is revealed to have occurred, so we can consciously accept or reject it. Arts historical consistent description of change. Consider art through the ages. It isn't so much that art has progressed, but that its actuality has constantly embodied these social paradigm shifts which were caused for the most part by technologies enforced changes. Arts message remains the same : this is the way we know of the world. In Pharisaic Egypt, when stability was the norm, the arts were just as much in a state of stasis. After the printing press gave birth to media and the rise of the state post office guaranteed delivery, magazines and comics helped shape how we saw the world, Pop art embodied this change. When the philosophy of scientific enquiry took hold, this change was embodied in Da Vinci's self analysis of the measurable world. When the internet spread the possibility of immediate interaction to most everyone, the arts embodied this paradigm of public but individual participation. When the royal courts were an expression of personal obligations to the crown, locket art embodied this. When society shifted to a personal relationship with god, unmediated by the church, Caravaggio's common men embodied the saints. When Americans felt secure as a nation, their Hudson River School embodied the landscape of the thirteen colonies. When ever society has experienced a paradigm shift, no matter its cause, art has embodied this shift and proclaimed to the world, see how we now are. Art has always been a court jester, allowing us to know ourselves, so we can choose our future versus technologies imposition of a future dictated by its usage. It is still our choice, but choice is what technology's usage ignores. Most people wouldn't give up their privacy, yet internet usage silently imposes this shift. Reaction to otherness Yet to embody within its own paradigm these social paradigm shifts, has meant that arts measure has always been its approach to these social shifts. Yet not all shifts are good for individuals nor society. So our reaction to understanding art may also be varied. We may pause in awe at the glory and perceptibility of the work, we might resonate with its value of cherished truth. Or we may be shocked to see expressed what we do not concur with, even if we ourselves embody this change too. If you don't get the joke – it isn't funny – if you don't get art- it's pointless. (hence the e refrain I'll know what I like when I see it.) There is always a clash of paradigms possible when you view art. Art makes the point of stating what is, what we have become, and not necessarily of what we should be. That this may not conform to our assessment of ourselves may be provocative. This provocation however, isn't a measure of how good art is. Confrontation and shock are not the goal of art. Embodying the paradigm shift is. That isn't as obvious as it sounds. But if an art work succeeds in this embodiment, then the possibility is equal of either awe or spontaneous abhorrence. There is a story of blind children being taken to a zoo to visit the chimpanzee enclosure. The chimps, at first curious , became physically aggressive and howled in hatred at the group of small sightless children. For the chimps, their way of knowing and interacting with the world is through the direction of an others gaze. These children with no sight, confounded and defied the chimps paradigm of interaction via the eyes direction of gaze. Such a direct affront to their way of knowing. The chimps paradigm was placed in peril. They refuted the other paradigm by being vocally abusive and physically threatening. There is another story told of an art exhibit in South America where an art work by R Irwin, embodying the experience of experience, (of colour without figurative subject), defied the viewers conscious paradigm of living- that of exchanged understanding instead of the arts' individual self -experiencing. They expected an illustrative storyline of subjects and explicit themes, and never expected a colour field in which to immerse themselves individually within its visual experience. They reacted as the chimps did when their paradigm was placed in question. The art work was attacked and smashed to pieces. Yet Irwin's art isn't significant because it affronted, its significant because it embodied a social paradigm shift. It isn't the nature of the paradigm pointed to that is significant, but its having shifted. Pointing out someones beauty or their faults can garner equally unexpected results from the recipient. Diversity in art. Living in an epoch of vast change and technological innovation; in a time of diversity and cultural influx and cosmopolitan variety, - it is natural that the number of paradigm shifts occurring in society is extensive and prolonged. Hence art has also become equally diversified and extensive in its content and expression. It isn't that art has lost its way. Art still simply embodies social paradigm shifts, and such a number! There is great value in having our attention brought to these shifts so to be able to guide our social evolution via a realm of suspended risk, where we can understand and grapple with these typically unconscious changes. So to then be able to consciously choose or reject our social future. These choices are pan- generational. So, although a paradigm shift may have occurred in the past, that isn't to say, that today's generation will not benefit from art that explores this historical shift. Art isn't simply about what is new, it is about what has changed which we need to be aware of. The time of origin of the change doesn't exclude the pertinence of any contemporary art exploring that paradigm shift. We can still choose a different future, even years after having changed. The colour infused skies of Turner, still ask us to consider our environment. The horror of Goya's devouring of the people still asks us to consider if we are without empathy. The lessons of the past are still relevant lessons for today's and possibly tomorrow's generation. Art is about do we accept this paradigm shift or not. It's not about should we, it is about do we? Either way, either to reinforce or to affront our paradigm, arts role remains constant and of significant evolutionary value for society. It is socially significant beyond any beauty that resonates in us. It calls for us to concur or deter what we have become. Art is a conscious embodiment of an unconscious paradigm shift caused typically by our unfettered usage of technology. It is a counterbalance, it is about us. Continuity in art Although the diversity and rapidity of current social changes appears to bode well for the immediate need for art, this is a period of particular danger for art. Art risks losing its way it strays from its ground. That Art: (1)- embodies a paradigm shift and allows a (2)- temporary and (3)- voluntary (4)-suspension of reality for our immersion into its coherent paradigm of being. Yet our epoch's current paradigm shift into augmented reality and participatory expressions, leaves a real danger open to us and to art. The danger is that Art must respect that it announces itself, that it remains voluntary and not a socially imposed or imbued experience. So when we now can walk through our artistic constructs as if we walk through life, art becomes such that it is indistinguishable from our daily lives. We risk now that there remains no suspension of reality within the art experience. Hence we risk gravely that there will be no reality to return to as we won't we've left it. There will be no distance to discover ourselves, to juxtapose arts paradigm with ours. Art now risks becoming a dream dreamt as reality and not art experienced as another reality of dreamt dreams. For art to bring value to society, it must preserve its aspect of embodying paradigm shifts so we can consciously consider what we risk remaining enslaved unconsciously to. We need to step outside of ourselves to be able to turn back and look at ourselves. By not remaining a voluntary and temporary assumed paradigm of being, art becomes simply a means of entrapment. Hindering society like a drug addiction , instead of offering the space for a perspective onto ourselves. Society's need for art has never been greater, yet the danger art might present has never been greater to individuals nor society. Art must deliberately remain in the realm of every way of knowing, becoming a way of being, and not slide silently into technologies corollary of every way of being, becoming a way of knowing. Art needs to remember it is an instrument for conscious choice, and not unconsciously become an instrument of imposed change. |
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