Oh man this is dynamite!!! I'll come back later to comment on specific points but I just wanted to express my spontaneous appreciation of this piece: it is absolutely superb in form and content! Thank you and bravo! 👏👏👏
Sorry it took me longer than I expected to be able to come back here and comment more precisely.
There are many aspects of your article I enjoyed thoroughly, starting with the first paragraph describing your experience of learning the trampoline at an age where body mass no longer makes even a not-so-nasty crash possibly quite nasty. In fact, the thought crossed my mind: "What a fantastic idea. I'd love to give it a go!"
I had no idea where your article was going from that point when, reading on, I found myself vehemently recognizing and agreeing with your reaction to aboriginal Australian art (and to Van Gogh's as well) and your questioning of the value of art within the prevailing cultural norms of rationality and reasonableness.
But I guess what prompted me to want to comment is that you then went into an area that is of special interest to me at the moment and which concerns the difference between "full spectrum" bodily experience of the material world and the experience of a digitalized representation of the material world, mostly through a screen.
Your paragraph starting with the sentence: "What I am realising, through the stimulus of my almost-gymnastics, is that much knowledge, or maybe even most knowledge is not known, it is felt. The whole nervous system is alive with thoughts of varying levels of sophistication..." touches to something that is formidably important in this day and age where our experience of the world looks like it is going to be almost entirely mediated through technology. The fact that we are complex physical bodies that have evolved through millions of years cannot simply be discarded "to exist almost entirely online", much less to make "intelligent" machines that will function like us, but much more efficiently, much more rationally. Not so sure about much more reasonably, though - arguably the greatest ever existential risk to face humanity.
As an artist, I've come to realize that art cannot exist online where it is falsely alluring, standardized, homogenized, commodified, transient, in short turned into worthless shit. The only artwork that exists is the physical picture on the wall, made by my hand, painstakingly over weeks, months, years (and yeah, pixels are not paint and never will be – even though, as a photographer, pixels are my base material which means: “I have a huge problem!”)
It is very interesting that you should find, as a computer programmer, that mere rational functioning doesn't cover all the bases. This, to me, points to the disconnect between analogue and digital and the gap that must be bridged. It makes great sense that a process of iterative testing helps to make the software do what it is supposed to do in real life. The question is: "Can the gap ever be bridged fully? Is something lost in the process and if so, what is it that is lost?"
Your article is great in pointing to a whole plane of experience that is purely physical and subconscious. Lots to think about here!
And yes, absolutely, fear is the artist's greatest enemy. Fear is the lack of courage (to the point of mortal paralysis) that comes when naïveté wanes, when we try to do art “sensibly”, that is, mostly, to live from it (though it could be said that Heston Blumenthal may have benefited from some amount of fear(!)) Your sentence: “You see, creativity is an absence of blockages rather than a skill in itself. It grows in the absence of limits.” This is so profoundly and importantly true!
Finally, your Douanier Rousseau illustration is so appropriate and so very beautiful. He was an artist who pursued his passion with total naïveté and perfect sincerity. I find his work immensely beautiful and touching and so enjoyed finding it here.
Oh man this is dynamite!!! I'll come back later to comment on specific points but I just wanted to express my spontaneous appreciation of this piece: it is absolutely superb in form and content! Thank you and bravo! 👏👏👏
Thank you so much Laura, that means the world to me
Hi Alexander,
Sorry it took me longer than I expected to be able to come back here and comment more precisely.
There are many aspects of your article I enjoyed thoroughly, starting with the first paragraph describing your experience of learning the trampoline at an age where body mass no longer makes even a not-so-nasty crash possibly quite nasty. In fact, the thought crossed my mind: "What a fantastic idea. I'd love to give it a go!"
I had no idea where your article was going from that point when, reading on, I found myself vehemently recognizing and agreeing with your reaction to aboriginal Australian art (and to Van Gogh's as well) and your questioning of the value of art within the prevailing cultural norms of rationality and reasonableness.
But I guess what prompted me to want to comment is that you then went into an area that is of special interest to me at the moment and which concerns the difference between "full spectrum" bodily experience of the material world and the experience of a digitalized representation of the material world, mostly through a screen.
Your paragraph starting with the sentence: "What I am realising, through the stimulus of my almost-gymnastics, is that much knowledge, or maybe even most knowledge is not known, it is felt. The whole nervous system is alive with thoughts of varying levels of sophistication..." touches to something that is formidably important in this day and age where our experience of the world looks like it is going to be almost entirely mediated through technology. The fact that we are complex physical bodies that have evolved through millions of years cannot simply be discarded "to exist almost entirely online", much less to make "intelligent" machines that will function like us, but much more efficiently, much more rationally. Not so sure about much more reasonably, though - arguably the greatest ever existential risk to face humanity.
As an artist, I've come to realize that art cannot exist online where it is falsely alluring, standardized, homogenized, commodified, transient, in short turned into worthless shit. The only artwork that exists is the physical picture on the wall, made by my hand, painstakingly over weeks, months, years (and yeah, pixels are not paint and never will be – even though, as a photographer, pixels are my base material which means: “I have a huge problem!”)
It is very interesting that you should find, as a computer programmer, that mere rational functioning doesn't cover all the bases. This, to me, points to the disconnect between analogue and digital and the gap that must be bridged. It makes great sense that a process of iterative testing helps to make the software do what it is supposed to do in real life. The question is: "Can the gap ever be bridged fully? Is something lost in the process and if so, what is it that is lost?"
Your article is great in pointing to a whole plane of experience that is purely physical and subconscious. Lots to think about here!
And yes, absolutely, fear is the artist's greatest enemy. Fear is the lack of courage (to the point of mortal paralysis) that comes when naïveté wanes, when we try to do art “sensibly”, that is, mostly, to live from it (though it could be said that Heston Blumenthal may have benefited from some amount of fear(!)) Your sentence: “You see, creativity is an absence of blockages rather than a skill in itself. It grows in the absence of limits.” This is so profoundly and importantly true!
Finally, your Douanier Rousseau illustration is so appropriate and so very beautiful. He was an artist who pursued his passion with total naïveté and perfect sincerity. I find his work immensely beautiful and touching and so enjoyed finding it here.
Thanks Laura, these are great reflections, it’s great to hear someone reply in such detail and add such insightful musings of their own ❤️