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Senior Students Exhibition May 2018 Department of the Arts, Visual Arts Program Curator: Professor Shady El-Noshokaty Aly Ramzy Amr Shiha Dina Jereidini Dina AbdelHalim Farah Essam Barakat Hana El Beblawy Lamyaa Rady Malak Shenouda Maryam El Azzawy Mariam Hamdy
Mariam A. Shehata Menna Afifi Menna Diaa Ali Mervat Allam Nada Sallam Nourhan Abou Gabal Rodeina Fouad Sara Ahmed El Barkouki Solyma Darwish
اقتالع السنون الذهبية
Pulling Out The Golden Teeth
معرض للمشروعات النهائية لطالب برنامج الفنون البصرية باجلامعة األمريكية م٢٠١٨ مايو٢٤ مايو الي اخلميس١٤ من االثنني،جاليري الشارقة
Visual Arts Senior Project Exhibition AUC, Sharjah Art Gallery. From May 14 to May 24, 2018 “Pulling Out The Golden Teeth” is an exhibition that presents nineteen art projects by students of the Visual Arts program at the AUC for the 2018 graduate year. The projects were produced throughout the year starting in the Fall of 2017. The starting point was the formation of ideas and detailed concepts through visual research, followed by the production phase then presentation and evaluation in the spring of 2018, as well as a book documenting the process and results of their art research. This final production stage is an integral part of the practical educational process of the current curriculum of the Visual Arts program at AUC. The title of the exhibition presents a concept that refers to an act of “pulling out”. Pulling out is the termination and riddance of a physical organic system that has been in a continuous state of stability and firmness. A system that gains its stability through its inner protected layered structure, like the layers of the earth, layers of memory, layers of preserved emotions or perhaps layers of deep consciousness and the origins of thought and history. This Pulling out is a radical and revolutionary act; seemingly wild and aggressive but perhaps necessary for potential regrowth and transformation. Maybe it is necessary to treat all that is hidden deep within these standing layers that preserve and contain what is collectively rooted in consciousness, culture, and science.Pulling out becomes necessary to discover, interrogate and question what is sustained and stored as a heritage of power and history. 5
The importance of art lies in this brave, difficult and probably impossible moment in the act of “pulling out”, it is a necessity for digging up through this sacred area of a sustained value of things. It is an exceptional moment of delving into these stable depths and pulling them out by the roots in an attempt to regrow brave newly structured ideas with more capacity to reshape the future. In art lies this bravery, and with it appears the possibility to discover and search these depths that are covered by a vast still ocean with which every chance of discovering a new scene has faded. The moment of creation starts with the boldness of pulling out, searching and excavating the depths. Without it, the fear of losing such mythical values like the authenticity of identity will prevail and the gradual change of every real value towards more rigid inanimateness with illusional effect will continue to take place! The future around us is being reshaped and it reshapes itself in tremendous speed never stopping at preserving materialistic values of infertile conventional systems that settled at the bottom of this ocean but every time creates a new strong, competing system, different in its smart abilities to morph maybe at a moment that addresses a clear concept of the contemporary moment.
Shady Elnoshokaty April 2018
فقدان لقيم أسطورية مثل األصالة والهوية و سيستمر التحول التدريجي لكل قيمة حقيقية الي جماد ساكن ذو تأثيروهمي! فاملستقبل حولنا يتشكل و يعيد تشكيل نفسه يف سرعة هائلة ال يتوقف أبد ًا عند حفظ لقيم مادية لنظم تقليدية عقيمة استقرت يف قاع ذلك احمليط و امنا يخلق يف كل مرة نظام جديد منافس يف قوته و اختالفه و يف قدراته الذكية علي التحول رمبا يف حلظة . تصف بوضوع املفهوم احلقيقي للحظة املعاصرة شادي النشوقاتي ٢٠١٨ ابريل
معرض " اقتالع السنون الذهبية" هو معرض يقدم تسعة عشر مشروع ًا فني ًا لطالب يف قسم مت إنتاجها من خالل عملية استغرقت، ٢٠١٨ الفنون البصرية باجلامعة األمريكية بالقاهرة لعام بتكوين الفكرة والبحث.)٢٠١٧ بدأت من الفصل الدراسي املاضي (خريف عام،سنة كاملة والتي تبعتها مرحلة اإلنتاج و التنفيذ و العرض و، البصري اخلاص بكل تفاصيلها النظرية ) مع إنتاج كتاب توثيقي ينشر النتائج النهائية ألبحاثهم٢٠١٨ التقييم يف فصل الربيع (مايو هذه املرحلة من مراحل اإلنتاج النهائية تعتبر جز ًء ال يتجزأ من خبرة العملية التعليمية.الفنية . للمنهج احلالي لبرنامج الفنون البصرية يف اجلامعة األمريكية بالقاهرة ففي اللغة االقتالع هو التخلص أو،"يقدم عنوان املعرض مفهوم يشير الي فعل " االقتالع ، يسكن يف حالة مستمرة من االستقرار والثبات، مادي- اإلنهاء الفعلي لنمو نظام عضوي يحتفظ بثباته داخل أعماق محمية يف طبقات ! كطبقات األرض أو طبقات الذاكرة أو الطبقات احملفوظة من املشاعرو أيضا يف الطبقات احملفوظة العميقة للوعي ويف منابع التفكيرو التاريخ رمبا املستحيلة يف فعل االقتالع.. تكمن أهمية ممارسة الفن يف تلك اللحظة الشجاعة و الصعبة فهي حلظة، فهو ضرورة للتنقيب يف منبع تلك املنطقة املبجلة للقيمة املستدمية ألي شيء استثنائية من التوغل يف العمق املستقر و اقتالعه متام ًا من منابعه لتنمو معها تكوين جديد من . أفكار جسورة أكثر قوة قد تعيد تشكيل املستقبل ففي الفن تكمن تلك الشجاعة و تظهر معها امكانية الكشف و البحث يف ذلك العمق الذي قد . يعلوه مشهد من محيط ساكن فسيح اختفت منه كل فرصة للكشف عن أي مشهد جديد و بدونها سيبقي اخلوف من،حلظة االبداع تبدأ بجرأة االقتالع و البحث و التنقيب يف العمق 6
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Dis-A-Ray Aly Ramzy
Light Installation
Paradoxes usually create the most complex arrangements. A brain is an arrangement, in which you can find a faculty made of organizations and chaos coinciding to create to us memories. This process creates a detailed complex labyrinth.
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ARCHITECTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS Amr Shiha
Multi-media Installation This project will mimic the theoretical structure of consciousness as a singularity, and its ties to the unity through hypothetical architectural renderings, materializing, and aggrandizing their structural possibilities in parallel
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It Is Time To Look For A Moment At What We Know About The World And How We Know It Dina Jereidini
Multi-media Installation I take something2 mysterious and turn it13 into an itch7 that I will have forever4. ___________ 1 A set of beliefs about existence and its components 2 We cannot subsequently see the inside and outside of a word 13 (“just missed [seeing] it�). 7 This is enforced through principles of illustration which attempt to create clarity in the image; lack of shading, lack of specific subjective peculiarities of the objects represented which might not represent the whole group, etc. 4 All that exists is material, and all that is material is knowable. ### | Pulling Out The Golden Tooth
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Hypno-Forms Enter the Glyptapanteles Dina AdbelHalim At this moment, You’re the victim of a Glyptapanteles Don’t worry, it’s not going to kill you.. It’s only going to inject its eggs inside your body cavity And after the eggs hatch into larvae, they will begin to feed on your body fluids But they still won’t kill you.. When they are done consuming you, the larvae will start eating their way out through your skin, while others will stay and take control of your brain and –now paralyzed– body And unfortunately, this will also not kill you. Who are you now?
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Lamb of God Farah Essam Barakat Painting on Canvas The ways in which life and death, Eros and Thanatos pulled at and played with each other throughout this oeuvre. The work is provocative precisely because of that tenderness: it forces you to look directly at abjection, focusing on decay and decadence. ### | Pulling Out The Golden Tooth
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The Art of Forgetting Hana El Beblawy
In his book, “The Art Of Forgetting� the author Ivan Izquierdo discusses how each one is who it is due to their own memories. Therefore, differentiating between the information that should be kept from those that should be forgotten is a difficult art. And this art of forgetting can be the same as the art of not saturating our minds or not letting our memory freeze but continue to regenerate. According to research there are several ways that help the survival surpass this traumatic experience. One of these ways is deconstructing this huge event to several small incidents connected to each other. Instead of making his memory swallow this traumatic big bulk of an event, it will be easier and faster for it ### | Pulling Out The Golden Tooth
to swallow separate and small incident. After deconstructing the big memory to small incidents, these small incidents can be used to recreate new memories inspired by them. In Gestalt’s theory of perception, Gestalt psychology research endeavors to comprehend mental phenomena by reviewing them as composed and organized wholes as opposed to the collective of their constituent parts. So, it is mainly the de-fragmentation of something after being a whole to being small components of details that makes it easier to receive it and deal with it.And once the human begin to invent creative ways to forget, forgetting becomes an Art: the Art of forgetting.
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Dysregulation1 Lamyaa Rady
The concept around this wearable sculpture is developed in a way that focuses on the process of destruction; healing; and survival of nature. The main three concepts, stem from the idea of immune system disorders, specifically Crohn’s disease, which attacks and damages its tissues within itself. These three main concepts combined together, reflect the fascinating cycle that allows the process of evolution in nature. It’s the concept of: ‘Breaking in order to fix’. This wearable sculpture is designed in a way to portray elements from nature that self-destruct in order to transform. The first element is a diseased immune system that attacks the body in order to survive. The second is the caterpillar that devolves itself into liquid in order to transform into a butterfly. The last element shown is the struggle between gravity and the chemical gases in the life cycle of a star until its potential explosion/death. The Avant-garde piece is created like a puzzle. The skirt/poncho has approximately 50 capsules that allows it to completely destruct and transform into numerous shapes. The bodice as well has around ten capsules that allows is to completely change shape. In a sense that each 5 pentagons create one piece that is movable in any part of the dress. The sculpture can also be put together to create wearable abstract shapes. _____________ 1 Abnormally or imperfectly regulated
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Surpassing Malak Shenouda Text on Wood Panels Valuable articles, objects of affection and gifts achieve value and maybe even priceless through our active role of attributing value to them. Objects transcend their material and physically embodied worth, and become more esteemed based on intellectual, spiritual, objective or intangible measures and
criteria. Their value resides in very complex sociocultural relations and abstract concepts, rather than their material aspect. This holy aura that surrounds one’s objects of value, may seem mysterious to an outsider due to the lack of empirical proof, but is very real to someone else. Left Image: Medical-hypnosis
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A Figment of Reality Maryam El Azzawy Painting on Paper Illusion of choice is neural sleight of hand where the mind is manipulated and deluded into creating its own world. A world where several scenarios can be created and perceived as the truth, with no roots of reality. 42
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The Nation of Nonbotany Mariam Hamdy
performance – installation Heterotopia is a concept of human geography used to describe places and times that function within non-hegemonic conditions. You’re in a state of heterotopia. Always.
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Apocalypse Interrupted Mariam A. Shehata
Wall illustration
“The city appears to you as a whole where no desire is lost and of which you are a part, and since it enjoys everything you do not enjoy, you can do nothing but inhabit this desire and be content….your labor which gives form to desire takes from desire its form, and you believe you are enjoying Anastasia wholly when you are only its slave.” -Italo Calvino: Invisible Cities heterotopia. 48
Feararchy Menna Afifi Watercolor drawings on 100x70 paper, paper cutouts, and engraved plexi glass. “The fear of annihilation Of ceasing to exist Destroy the procreation, genesis The fear of losing any part Of our precious bodily structure To cut and separate the flesh from bones You gonna be rejected Non respected and silenced You don’t need affection to share You gonna be humiliated By someone you don’t know But you’ve got accustomed to it You gonna feel immobilized, paralyzed for a time. Disintegrated and left for the germs to consume you. Left for the spirits to ruin you.” - Feararchy, from the album hatred, by Fiendgrief.
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What’s your courtship ritual? Menna Diaa Ali Multi-media installation Communication systems are built fixed programs, altered to surroundings and operating in a loop. Does communication fulfil your desires, help you dominate, or defend yourself? Communication fulfils your instinctual drives, it’s the essential key tocomplete a reproductive cycle. Instinctual drives produce a certain end, without prior foresight of the end results, nor previous education of the performance that leads to this end. In the animal kingdom, what exists on an enormous scale, is instinct.
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The Banyan Tree Mervat Allam
Acrylic on canvas 100X150 The work is conceptually based on the structure of the Banyan Tree, portraying an assemblage of different incongruous and dramatic forms of industrial parts and machines juxtaposed with elements of human organs, plants, and cells. In the works, inanimate forms connect and morph into organic animate parts. The result is a complex hybrid structure, possessing a character and a life of its own, demonstrating how our world is entangled and interconnected.
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URBAN MYTH Nada Sallam
Drawing
The Urban Myths project aims to establish an intricate network of connections among three domains, a selection of myths from Greek mythology, the seven deadly sins in Christian belief, and various notions present in modern day life that correspond to the first two categories simultaneously. Each of the seven Greek myths examined is directly affiliated with one of the seven deadly sins, due to their resonance as primary or secondary themes of the myths at hand. The relatively outdated myths and the corresponding sins are juxtaposed with their contemporary counterparts, extracted from a wide array of diverse sources ranging from science to popular culture, uncovering overlooked enlightening connections that serve to verify the everlasting presence of myths as their quintessence nevertheless resonates inevitably.
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Absence Nourhan Abou Gabal
Drawing
Absence is a drawing novel about three different characters: Green, Red, and Blue. In these novels, every color is interpreted and analyzed differently. With a new personal physiological color theory; Green is History, Blue is Fantasy, Red is Reality. The novels document the physical, intellectual and emotional interactions between myself and those three characters throughout the course of the past two years. The result of mixing those three basic colors together, is often an “absence�. ### | Pulling Out The Golden Tooth
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Terra Nullius Rodeina Fouad
Multi-media archival installation “The odd thing about a ‘nothingness’ is its reliance on a ‘thing’, hence it exists.” Truth and illusion, black and white and nothing and thing all rely on two different worlds, but what if there is a world between both sides; grey. Grey, that identifies subjectivity, that proves the existence of both worlds, nevertheless, and that reconstructs the constructed and constructs the reconstructed. ### | Pulling Out The Golden Tooth
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Order of the Tumor Sara Ahmed El Barkouky
Multi-media Installation
A mutation in the existing attributes of space , expanding in a manner so as to swell. It can be ever expanding, or it can be a stagnant swelling percieved as a disruption. The contrast between its texture and strength is what forms the contradiction of whether it is an addition to, or a negation of space.
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Desiring Machines Solyma Darwish Multi-media Installation Everywhere it is machines—real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections. An organ-machine is plugged into an energysource-machine: the one produces a flow that the other interrupts. The breast is a machine that produces milk, and the mouth I machine coupled to it. The mouth of the anorexic wavers between several functions: its possessor is uncertain as to whether it is an eating-machine, an anal machine, a talking-machine, or a breathing machine (asthma attacks). Hence we are all handymen: each with his little machines. ### | Pulling Out The Golden Tooth
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PRACTICE RESEARCH Prior to commencing the Senior A class, students are required to take a series of Advanced Studio Practice classed where they work towards building a self-directed conceptual practice. Students cultivate a cross-disciplinary studio environment, which allows them the opportunity to develop their creative thinking methodologies, conceptual practice and information about new forms of contemporary art like Cartography Art, Concrete Poetry, in relation to Conceptual Art & Text, New Media, Installation Art and Conceptual Performance Art. This section documents some of the images that were captured during selected students’ practice research phase in said studio practice classes.
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STUDENT RESEARCH Dina Jereidini Dina AbdelHalim Farah Essam Barakat Lamyaa Rady Malak Shenouda Maryam El Azzawy Mariam Hamdy Menna Afifi Menna Diaa Ali Mervat Allam Sara Ahmed El Barkouki Solyma Darwish
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It Is Time To Look For A Moment At What We Know About The World And How We Know It Dina Jereidini In scientific illustration, a manifestation of the materialistic worldview of the scientific method is iterated time and time again. It is a worldview or ontology1 which suggests self-proclaimed ‘objective’ claims about the world are possible, because all that exists is material, and all that is material is knowable. But perhaps more importantly, it is in the function of scientific illustration – as a product of a secularmaterialist ontology which seeks to represent the natural world as it sees it – that interesting ideas arise about human perception, its limitations, and our desire to overcome those limitations. What is immediately obvious in scientific illustration is an active intention to overcome the limitations of human vision. Whether through dissection of the studied objects, or representation which follows a semantic structure which is logically sensible but ultimately not corresponding to natural realistic 1 A set of beliefs about existence and its components. ### | Pulling Out The Golden Tooth
depiction of the world2. The tension between representing what is seen ‘as it is’ versus ‘so that it might be seen the way we wish to receive it’, is wonderfully manifest. It betrays not only an inability to represent objectivity due to our subjective limitations (whether spatial3 or temporal position4), but a deep desire to make subjective perception bend to the will of the mind and its intentions. To manipulate a visual perception so that it might be more easily understood by other members of the human race is to manufacture your own ‘objectivity’, or claims to objectivity, ones that are built on presuppositions about value (what 2 This is enforced through principles of illustration which attempt to create clarity in the image; lack of shading, lack of specific subjective peculiarities of the objects represented which might not represent the whole group, etc. 3 We cannot subsequently see the inside and outside of a physical form, but are limited to our position in space and relative perspective. 4 What is meant here by temporal position is an inability to see due to physical displacement through time (i.e. “just missed [seeing] it”).
to include in an image or not), and human codes (how to read an image). Most importantly, if this manipulation betrays anything, it is the desire to know and the desire to be certain, to make claims about what can be and should be known. It is no coincidence that the ultimate conception of God in the Abrahamic tradition includes the quality of “the All-Seeing Eye”5. God is portrayed as all-seeing, and this betrays something essential about humanity –our desire to see, to overcome the limitations of our perspective, of our subjectivity, and become one with the external and the eternal. And while this is not possible in scientific materialism, it certainly appears to be one of the key driving psychological factors of its endeavor to knowledge. We wish to understand the world, our place in it and to understand our own selves. Whether the inescapability of our subjectivity presents a profound contradiction to scientific claims to objectivity is open to question. Yet while the state of human epistemology6 has been neither supplanted nor resolved by the scientific method, there is one development that has occurred. The will to knowledge, while always existing throughout human history, has now, with the aid of materialism, been supplemented by the status of vision as a way of knowing and understanding the world. Where once theology
and philosophy provided the answers to questions about knowledge and the possibility of knowledge, scientific observation has taken root.
5 Koenderink, Jan. “The All Seeing Eye?” Perception, vol. 43, no. 1, 2014, pp. 1–6., doi:10.1068/p4301ed. 6 The study of knowledge.
7 Derrida, Jacques. Differance. Det Lille Forlag, 2005. 8 Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits: A Selection. Norton, 1977. 9 Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits: A Selection. Norton, 1977.
The internal, the E(x)ternal: To look is to perceive; to receive information about apparent bodies and materials which are visually and physically distant, and therefore different from ourselves7. Most importantly these perceptions are different from our minds, our interior subjective realities; our thoughts and emotions. Early on in most human lives, when we discover our inability to affect the assumed external world, we deduce that we must be separate from it8. A dichotomy is manifest, separating what is perceived to be the internal and external. It separates the internal as subjective, limited and personal to the individual, which helps explain how our emotions and ideas, especially as children, are not easily transmissible to others, but must be communicated via language9. In contrast, the external, as a status quo which is viable to perception by others, is therefore not subjective, but objective, and at minimum, empirical. It is able to be measured, with accuracy, and reliability, and to be manipulated and experienced similarly by others, with very little degree of variation. This play of
external and internal, of objective and subjective proves to be ultimately deeply problematic, as, without the mind, the locus of subjectivity and interiority, the awareness of the dichotomy itself would not be possible. It is an inevitable state of being that any knowledge of the objective is mediated by our own subjectivity. Whether it is possible to know anything at all of the apparent external reality has been one of humankind’s defining epistemological10 questions. In Abrahamic theological traditions, represented in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the external is not only fleeting but insignificant compared to a truer, higher reality which does not bear any relation to the materiality we perceive. To materialist philosophies, empirical evidence about the world is all that we can hope to know. For materialism, the nature of the external world is as it is perceived, and our interactions with it are all there is. In this ontology, our senses take on the status of epistemological tools. We depend on our perceptions, rather than abstract thought and philosophy, to know. The scientific method is the most important manifestation of this mode of thought, which is my no means and has by no means been the dominant mode of thought of human history. It has its precedents 10 Epistemology being the study of knowledge. Dancy, Jonathan. An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology. Blackwell, 2008. 98
in the thoughts of Aristotle11, and later in Europe in the 1600s, as a secular materialism began to take shape which put aside the philosophical and metaphysical claims about the existence of a higher reality and focused on the observable, perceived world. This view posits not only that what we see is valid and ‘all there is’, but that there can be no miraculous exception to the material order of things12. The nature of material is to be manipulated, and any change in that material must and can be accounted for. ‘Being’ limited, limited Being: The human eye can be understood as an inquiring tool, collecting light energy from its environment to inscribe on the mind.13 Sight allows the visual-mental system to create images of the world at intervals. Yet our 11 Klinke, Harald. Art Theory as Visual Epistemology. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014, p 68. 12 Betz, Frederick. Managing Science Methodology and Organization of Research. Springer New York, 2011, p21. 13 Nanay, Bence. “Ambiguous Figures, Attention, and Perceptual Content: Reply to Jagnow. ” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, vol. 10, no. 4, Feb. 2011, pp. 559. 99
brains are limited by time. The synapses fire in time, electrical pulses travel in space, requiring even more time, and so our fluid rendition of reality is in truth a series of snapshots, brought together by the phenomenon referred to as persistence of vision14. Our brain synthesizes these images into one continuous perception of reality. The human ‘framerate’ has been theorized at about 25 Hz –25 images per second –in order to observe image variation as fluid movement15. To perceive the temporal limitations of our ‘framerate’ one need only observe a thin enough streak of water droplets deflecting off a surface –at every point in time the streak seems to be split up into separate droplets moving in the same trajectory, rather than a fluid blur. Additionally, we see in binocular vision; we are capable of depth perception. Yet the perceptual information we receive from the external world is that of two two-dimensional images superimposed to create the illusion of depth. We can only have two-dimensional perception of a 3-d world, a view which is reconciled at the level of the mind, cementing the role of subjectivity in the whole endeavor.
One can easily see the limitations of our bodily knowledge-tools: the eyes move in a rapid motion from one object of their gaze to the next in “saccadic” movements16, constantly repositioning the fovea17 in order to construct as accurate a mental image of our visual field as possible. The body is rife with limitations in providing a constant visual input unencumbered by technical limitations18. To look, therefore, is to engage in the process, of acquiring only near-constant visual input, split into frames which are easily digestible and therefore analyzable, and to make meaning of them by means of how they relate to existing ideas and memories. One of the most important elements of knowledge of the external, however, is to be sure of its constancy. This is necessary in a materialist worldview where objects do not appear and disappear, but follow a logical, rational mode of existence, moving through linear time from one moment to the next, bound by natural laws. For vision, this means perceiving, or in any case assuming sameness over time, and in space. We hold a gaze of constant revision in order
14 Coltheart, M. “The Persistences of Vision” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 290, no. 1038, Aug. 1980. 15 Shady, S., et al. “Adaptation from Invisible Flicker.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 101, no. 14, 2004.
16 Hoffman. 17 The point at which vision is sharpest. Pumphrey, R J. “The Theory of the Fovea.” Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 25, 1948. 18 Hoffman, J. E., & Subramaniam, B. (1995). The Role of Visual Attention in Saccadic Eye Movements, Perception & Psychophysics, pp. 57. 100
to detect perceptual sameness over time – to measure and know, to be able to make claims about our experience. Snapshots of objects in time are retained in the mind and constantly recalled without needing to focus our gaze on them once more. However, when it is necessary to do so, we engage in visual fixation. Fixation entails looking at one spatial point for a period of time19. When the eye fixates on an object to analyze it, to stare at it, its goal is to receive information from that object which may allow us to make claim about it. When we are unable to fixate, we become involved in the brain’s perceptual, classificatory mechanisms. We become aware of our stare, self-reflexive; aware of the impossibility of our knowledge, and of the reality of our limitations and smallness; introspection occurs. The brain is a streamlining machine: The brain is a streamlining machine, the objective of which is to provide a working-model of reality with which to interact. Our memory allows us also to retain information textures, their tactile and visual properties –and classifying them accordingly, in order to know and understand them. While the brain’s perceptual mechanisms involve filtering and classifying different 19 Nanay, pp. 559. 101
phenomena, this occurs with visual stimuli as well as generally in the brain. The brain engages in a process of filtering, wherein stimuli are suppressed for the sake of better information synthesis. This happens in favoring particular senses over each other (aural vs. visual, etc.). This happens involuntarily with visual stimuli (such as the way in which we do not see our eyelids when we blink). Subjectivity is therefore not only rooted in complex cultural ideals, but in human biology.
perceptual phenomena are based.22 The brain engages in an act of involuntary perceptual switches, as its interpretation is applied and reapplied on the same image, resulting in different readings or understandings.23 To stare is to illuminate/to see is an internal function:
An attempt at certainty/a practice of conviction: Due to the frame-rate model of visual perception, our mind is periodically and constantly reestablishing and reanalyzing reality. This establishes a relationship between the internal mind and external world which is repetitive, doubting, inquisitive, affirmative, and constantly constructed in time & space. Since we have no objective way of measuring –we measure by constancy and variation20. This is the premise played upon in the work of James Turrell, whose use of subtle color variation over time challenges the eye’s discriminatory faculties.21 It is also the premise on which optical illusions, such as multi-stable
Can we know the truth of any perception? We are severely limited by our biology. It follows that our limitations cannot possibly provide an accurate representation of reality. How, then, does looking function? It is a way of making sure we are able to function and survive by making superficial claims about phenomena and objects. It is not concerned with truth, but with conviction. Constant revision allows certainty over time to be determined. However, what this means is that interpretation of difference and claims about the world occur internally. If certainty about phenomena is achieved by detecting variation and sameness, then certainty (or truth) is a proposition that is entirely internal and holds no significance in the external world.24 Convictions about the world,
20 Cohen, Jonathan. “Perceptual Constancy.” Oxford Handbooks Online, 2014. 21 Beveridge, Patrick. “Color Perception and the Art of James Turrell.” Leonardo, vol. 33, no. 4, 2000.
22 Examples include the Necker cube, which may be seen as variable from many different spatial orientations. 23 Huguet, G., et al. “Noise and Adaptation in Multistable Perception: Noise Drives When to Switch, Adaptation Determines Percept Choice.” Journal of Vision, vol. 14, no. 3, 2014. 24 David, Marian. “Anti-Realism.” Disputatio, VIII, no. 43, Nov. 2016.
therefore2526 , are created through the act of looking itself and the subjectivity which comes along with it. Just as the notions of antiquity held that light emanated from the eye, the stare becomes a type of illumination toward the outside world27. It casts the world, as it is perceived, in light of our biological abilities and preconceived codes. Wittgenstein holds that “When we change the aspect” under which we look at the picture, seeing it now as a duck, now as a rabbit, what changes? Not the picture, for that stays the same. What changes is not any object but rather the way we look at it; we see it differently, just as we see a face differently when we look at it, first as an expression of happiness and then as an expression of pride.” 28 The idea that reality is unattainable, and at best perceptually determined is at the heart of this philosophy, for what reality is there to be found in objects, where certainty isn’t found? And 25 In the sense that our perception holds no relation to an unknowable, external reality. 26 David. 2016 27 Kosky, Jeffrey L. “Contemplative Recovery.” CrossCurrents, vol. 63, no. 1, 2013. 28 Monk, Ray. “Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Passion for Looking, Not Thinking.” New Statesman, New Statesman, 15 Aug. 2012. 102
if reality is not objectively knowable, but only subjectively, then what does that mean for the value we attribute to claims of truth, whether scientific or theological? Looking as control: Fixation for the sake of certainty brings about a desire for control –of information, of sensory stimulus. Wanting to arrest the transitory act of staring in time and space –to control it and immobilize it, so that it may be consumed over and over again, is a function of our biology, and emerges from our limitations as temporal beings. To see something, to analyze it fully, is to allow our eyes to consume its visual image gluttonously in an attempt at understanding. To do this we arrest the object, metaphorically as well as literally. The mindset towards vision as a tool of control has affected human culture, and the way we organize time. In the days before the light bulb, and the discovery of fire before that, man was compelled to follow the patterns of nature; to accepting fated nights of sightlessness. Yet to create a technology by which to extend the hours of vision is to dramatically alter human life –to place our preference for the visual in clear light. The desire to use our visual faculties might betray a desire to consume, or a desire to know. 103
Methodology: One way to address perception’s role as a flawed ‘truthing’ device is through constant flux. Ambiguity is an antidote to ‘blind’ certainty –and a tool of introspection and reflexiveness. The objective is to allow for the mind to strip away or make visible the perceptual predispositions by which it functions. As such, a purely perceptual experience is ideal, as opposed to an object/ tool. It allows for a hyperawareness of context –the context of the gallery space, the body within it, the types of questions which arise from that context, including questions about perception and intention. What am I supposed to be staring at? What cues are being implied by which I may see? The gallery space in itself is a type of experimental lab for staring. We are expected to, above all else, look; to analyze our surroundings. The stare in the gallery space takes on more than just a utilitarian function but creates the type of mental landscape which allows for introspection and reflexivity, albeit limited within the codes we have grown accustomed to. These codes mark out what counts as ‘the artwork’. The artwork is usually an object; material. The artwork is also usually localized. It occupies a space within the gallery. Finally, the artwork is typically demarcated –whether by positioning, lighting, or installation. Ahmed Shawky’s 2017 exhibition at Townhouse Gallery, ‘An Object Resembling an Artwork’ –
makes use precisely of these perceptual codes, in order to represent typically overlooked elements of the gallery space as artworks themselves, thus reintroducing them to the viewer’s gaze. “Man… never perceives anything fully or comprehends anything completely… by using scientific instruments he can partly compensate for the deficiencies of his senses… [yet] no matter what instruments he uses, at some point he reaches the edge of certainty beyond which conscious knowledge cannot pass.” –Carl Jung References: Betz, Frederick. Managing Science Methodology and Organization of Research. Springer New York, 2011. Beveridge, Patrick. “Color Perception and the Art of James Turrell.” Leonardo, vol. 33, no. 4, 2000, pp. 305–313., doi:10.1162/002409400552694. Cohen, Jonathan. “Perceptual Constancy.” Oxford Handbooks Online, 2014, pp. 1–23., doi:10.1093/ oxfordhb/9780199600472.013.014. Coltheart, M. “The Persistences of Vision.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 290, no. 1038, Aug. 1980, pp. 57–69., doi:10.1098/ rstb.1980.0082. Dancy, Jonathan. An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology. Blackwell, 2008. David, Marian. “Anti-Realism.” Disputatio, VIII, no. 43, Nov. 2016, pp. 173–185.
Derrida, Jacques. Differance. Det Lille Forlag, 2005. Hoffman, J. E., & Subramaniam, B. (1995). “The role of visual attention in saccadic eye movements.” Perception & Psychophysics, 57, 787–795. Huguet, G., et al. “Noise and Adaptation in Multistable Perception: Noise Drives When to Switch, Adaptation Determines Percept Choice.” Journal of Vision, vol. 14, no. 3, 2014, pp. 19–19., doi:10.1167/14.3.19. Jung, C. G., et al. Man and His Symbols. Stellar Classics, 2013. Klinke, Harald. Art Theory as Visual Epistemology. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. Koenderink, Jan. “The All Seeing Eye?” Perception, vol. 43, no. 1, 2014, pp. 1–6., doi:10.1068/p4301ed. Kosky, Jeffrey L. “Contemplative Recovery.” CrossCurrents, vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 44–61., doi:10.1111/cros.12012. Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits: a Selection. Norton, 1977. Monk, Ray. “Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Passion for Looking, Not Thinking.” New Statesman, New Statesman, 15 Aug. 2012, www.newstatesman.com/culture/art-and-design/2012/08/ ludwig-wittgenstein%E2%80%99s-passion-looking-notthinking. Nanay, Bence. “Ambiguous Figures, Attention, and Perceptual Content: Reply to Jagnow. ” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, vol. 10, no. 4, Feb. 2011, pp. 557–561., doi:10.1007/s11097-011-9221-3. Pumphrey, R J. “The Theory of the Fovea.” Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 25, 1948, pp. 299–312. Shady, S., et al. “Adaptation from Invisible Flicker.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 101, no. 14, 2004, pp. 5170–5173., doi:10.1073/ pnas.0303452101. 104
Hypno-Forms Dina AbdelHalim “As the physicist nears the confines of his kingdom he finds himself bewildered by touches and gleams from another realm which interpenetrates his own. He finds himself compelled to speculate on invisible presences, if only to find a rational explanation for undoubted physical phenomena, and insensibly he slips over the boundary, and is, although he does not yet realize it, contacting the astral plane.”1 1 Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, Thought-Forms, The Theosophical Publishing House LTD, 2005, p.11.
The extraordinary phenomenon known as hypnosis epitomizes the transformation from the invisible to the material, and vice versa. It is this simple characteristic of hypnosis that we can also use as a methodology for understanding the altered states of mind throughout the process, using the basic rules of thought-forms. Yet through this ‘astral plane,’ can we still be able to visualize what happens in the state of mind of a hypnotized being? Extracted from the process of hypnosis are three main elements: the controlled, the controller 105
and the controlling substance. The controlled is the entity being taken over by the deceitful power of the controller. It slowly falls under the possessing authority, gradually losing its awareness and diminishing in essence. The controller, alternatively, finds his opponent’s weaknesses and uses them as its weapons in his successful attempt for interference. It indulges in dominating the controlled entity, which only tries to passively defend itself, never trying to attack. The concept of change here identifies the
transmission of control from the controller to the controlled. It begins in a state where the controlled entity’s awareness is starting to taper and its control over itself is put at risk. It then gradually starts being possessed by the controller who slowly takes over until he achieves his goal and conquers the controlled entity. The effect of this mental phenomenon is manifested in the physical states of both entities, the controller and the controlled. The controlled begins to lose control over his body and his organs as a result of the overwhelming emotion that takes over his mind. The brain and 106
the body are now not parts of one whole and thus the brain cannot help the body survive this danger. The more the controlled tries to gain control over his body, the more energy is wasted in its unsuccessful attempts and the easier it becomes for the controller to restrain its body. As a result of this mental confusion, the body lacks the ability to provide conscious impulses and behavioral responses. The controlled begins to be disconnected from its body. It can first see and hear what’s going on around it, but then its awareness is reduced to perhaps the sense of sight only and later it has no physical control over any body part. However, this immobility is only an internal aspect of the controlled. The controller is now in command of not only the mental functions of the controlled but also operates the physical reflexes. The psychological state of mind of the controlled also plays an important role in this contest of power. The controller engages in 107
the psychology of the controlled to give way for directing and manipulating its thought processes. The controlled is, at first, bewildered by the overwhelming fear of the unknown. It is hesitant and cannot predict what’s going to happen next. Sometimes, it’s surprised by an unconscious response or a memory coming to mind. The controlled cannot distinguish between reality and fiction; it is trapped in a ‘parallel awareness’ vainly trying to escape. After a while, the controlled feels more calm and submissive to the controller, who takes him in a journey of emotions. Falling in complete trance, it virtually experiences the captivity of the controller in the darkest, most unpleasant places, knowing what and where it is but strongly focused on the internal ‘realities’. Hypnosis is the process of exploiting a person’s physical functions in order to influence a nonphysical entity into a specific change. It is a method of transition in human awareness that is
based on the philosophy of belief. This abstract understanding of belief relies on the power of the subconscious mind, which reflects the true identity of the human as his repressed thoughts and desires. In general, philosophy and hypnosis are both related to the nature of belief2. The matter of consciousness in hypnosis relies on what we believe in and what we want to change in our life, and it’s only by how much deeply rooted these ideas are or how much we want to achieve them does hypnotherapy become successful. “While humans are not entirely unique in our ability to be self-aware, we are unique in the ability to be aware of our awareness.”3 The theory of hypnosis establishes 2 Arthur D. Schwartz, Philosophy and Hypnosis, Integral Hypnosis, 2017. 3 Christopher Muscato, Conscious Awareness: Definition & Types, Holt Psychology Principles in Practice: Online Textbook Help, 2017.
the transformation from visible form to an intangible state; while the process is seen and felt in the physical actions performed (rituals), its results lie in the unseen state of consciousness and/or unconsciousness.
It then becomes clear that the obstacles they need to overcome lie on the spiritual level, even though a mental, emotional or physical symptom was what induced the treatment in the first place.
Since the discourse of hypnosis engages in the study of a reality beyond the physical senses, it therefore has its own metaphysics. Through this thinking methodology of metaphysics4, it becomes clear that humans are capable of identifying with the invisible, eternal reality. “This realization helps us understand that through the activity of our minds we are able to shape and form our external world.”5 Through the analysis of hypnosis, it is understood that three aspects of an individual are involved in the process: the mind, body and spirit. In the process of hypnotherapy, the therapist is responsible for maintaining the balance between those three natures and, at the same time, incorporating them with the whole.6 Those three entities become the main constituents of an end, and even although one of these constituents is in a visible form, the end product -the state of trance- is a purely imaginary one. This observation is also made when we come to analyze the nature of the problems being addressed in these therapy sessions. When patients are asked about what they want or need the most in their lives, they often reply in such answers like “peace of mind” or “love.”7
In the sciences, hypnotic influences on the body are classified through distinctive brain activity and unconscious information processing. The term hypnosis is defined as “a therapeutic technique in which clinicians make suggestions to individuals who have undergone a procedure designed to relax them and focus their minds.”8 In a typical hypnosis session, the patient is put in a state of focused unawareness while the therapist repeats goals or targets that the patient wants to achieve in an attempt for him (the patient) to imagine and visualize these objectives and therefore help in accomplishing them. This occurs with the aid of psychological influences that target focused attention and expectations using a state of heightened suggestibility, creating a dissociation between normal sensations and conscious awareness.
4 Anne H. Spencer, The Relationship Between Metaphysics and Hypnosis, Infinity Institute International, 2017. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. Manipulator, Andrew-Fairclough, 2017
In art history, hundreds of posters, paintings and drawings reveal the strange universe of creative abilities. For the last two-hundred and fifty years, hypnosis has been introduced in works of comedy, mystery, fiction, and most importantly, as accomplishments of super-human quality.9 It was often performed by mentalists practicing 8 Anonymous, Hypnosis, American Psychological Association, 2017. 9 Andrew Newton, The Mesmeric Arts – The Image of the Hypnotist in Popular Culture, 2017. 108
the art form of mentalism.10 The field of medicine had long considered mesmerism, or hypnotism as a fraud, however, during the time of Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), mesmerists (hypnotists) were amazing their spectators. As opposed to the theory of suggestion, Mesmer thought that the mystery of hypnotherapy was in the ‘Animal Magnetism’ of the universe.11 The most significant form of hypnosis was a type of performance art called a ‘hypnotic soiree,’ an entertainment which became popular in the 19th century and involved music played by a pianist and women who faint as the hypnotist coordinates the activity.12 The audience were not the only people to be astonished by the phenomenon, but also were the mesmerists themselves, who spent a lot of time struggling to come up with a suitable theory to describe it.13 The system of thought forms describes thought as an entity which produces a double effect. This double effect consists of a single idea that entails two aspects of definition, or its meaning. The first is the radiating vibration, which conveys the quality of the thought but not the subject.14 It is the attribute of the thought or what is immediately triggered in the human when the thought is present. The second effect of thought is referred to as the “elemental essence,” or the creation of a definite form.15 It 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, Thought-Forms, The Theosophical Publishing House LTD, 2005, p.21. 15 Ibid. 109
is metaphorically understood as the life of the thought, which takes its power from mental and astral aspects but functions independently. The main focus of my project will be on the abstract energy that control thought forms. Instead of translating pure emotions to abstract forms, the subject of transformation will be the quality of the states in hypnotic trance. But the question is: What needs to be mapped or measured? A type of communication that takes place within and throughout something that has no medium. This reflects concepts that include interference and the disposition of power and their development throughout the stages in visual forms, avoiding the direct representation of the states as illustrations. This visualization of the different states of mind of hypnosis
will consist of a group of sculptures, each of which has a specific element that illustrate the quality of the mind in each stage, based on a collection of data from different sources that explain changes in the brain analyzed from experiments done on hypnotized patients. The form of translation will vary in features such as texture, shape, color, organic states and into mediums such as audio and video. Because I believe that the process of creating this artwork manifests most of its conceptual framework, I took an approach similar that of Marcel Duchamp’s methodology in The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) together with the storyline strategy of translation in Mathew Barney’s The Cremaster Cycle. The storyline or each part of this narrative, in that sense, represents a certain stage in the
hypnotic process. So, for instance, the first part of the installation would depict the first stage of hypnotic induction. At the same time, elements of the hypnotic process; the controller, the controlled and the sense of control, will be given characteristics of other entities that have a similar experience in real life but are represented as fictional elements. For example, the controller is symbolized by a species of wasps called the Glyptapanteles which control their victims’ body and mind in the most shocking way. Other aspects of representation are part of the ongoing research process which also entails the connections between this research and how they all produce this coherent anecdote of fictional figures set in the context of realistic phenomenon.
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There is no doubt that the advancement of technology has altered the ways in which humans live and perceive the world. Simulation is one of those advancements and has applications in many fields, from medicine, business and gaming. The more sophisticated and advanced technology becomes, the more simulations are representative of ‘real life’, but how real is ‘real’? Perhaps our human senses are deceiving us — maybe existence is an illusion, and reality isn’t real. This idea that everything we know is merely a construction of our minds, enables one to question whether we might be part of a simulation in a simulated world?
How Real is Real? Farah Essam Barakat
If everything in the universe is made of the same components, does this mean everything in the universe is dead or that everything in the universe is alive? Could this mean we can never die because we were never alive in the first place? Is life and death an irrelevant question and we are yet to notice? Is it possible we are much more part of the universe around us than we thought? Are you only your body? But is there a line where this stops being true? How much of yourself can you remove before you stop being you? Current technology and human knowledge does not allow us to simulate a human brain accurately. However, one day this may not be the case, and surely it may not be the case already in another parallel world. Now, humans are
### | Pulling Out The Golden Tooth
programming robots and artificial intelligence that are capable of general intelligence, and exhibit human like behavior, mobility and emotions. Thus, given these technological capabilities, the idea of simulation is no longer obscure or out of reach. According to Elon Musk, CEO, and lead designer of SpaceX, it is almost certain that we are living in a computer simulation stating that “There is one in a billion chance that this is base reality.” Musk holds the view that humans are basically some advanced version of the game, The Sims. Musk is echoing a paper on this theory by philosopher, Author and advisor to the United Nations on Artificial Intelligence, Nick Bostrom. His argument is as follows; where at least one of the following propositions is true: 1. The human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; 2. any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); 3. we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.
Bostrom argues that “if civilization stops advancing, that may be due to some calamitous event that erases civilization” But another possibility is that if we keep advancing — and assuming everything in the physical world can be simulated— eventually, we will simulate ourselves; every synapse in the human brain, for everyone on earth. Generating enough computational power to run billions of ancestor simulations, those who believe suitably programmed computers could enjoy conscious experience of the sort we enjoy must accept the possibility that their own experience is being generated as part of a computerized simulation. It would be a mistake to dismiss this is just one more radical skeptical possibility: for as Bostrom has recently noted, if advances in computer technology were to continue at close to present rates, there would be a strong probability that we are each living in a computer simulation. However, Bostrom theorizes we could send tiny, self-replicating robots to other planets, which would turn the planet into a huge computer and some of the simulations would start making their own simulations. In this scenario, there are billions of universes that are indistinguishable from our own; that means, chances are, we are in one of those simulated universes. Life is fundamentally different from dead things — or is it? Physicist Erwin Schrodinger defined life this way; living things avoid decay into disorder and equilibrium. Every living thing on this planet is made of cells. Basically, a cell 112
is a protein-based robot too small to feel or experience anything. It has the properties we assign to life: it has a wall that separates it from its surroundings, creating order; it regulates itself and maintains a constant state; it eats to stay alive; it grows and develops; it reacts to the environment; it is subject to evolution; and it self-replicates. However, of all the components that makes up a cell, no part is alive. Stuff reacts chemically with other stuff, forming reactions that start other reactions which start other reactions. In a single cell, every second several million chemical reactions take place, forming a complex orchestra. A cell can build several thousand types of 113
proteins: some very simple, some complex micro machines. No part of the cell is alive; everything is dead matter moved by the laws of the universe. So is life the aggregate of all these reactionary processes that are taking places? Eventually, every living thing will die. The goal of the whole process is to prevent this by producing new entities; and by this, we mean DNA.
beneficial to their genetic code. So, maybe life is information that manages to endure its continued existence. But what about AI; artificial intelligence? By our most common definition, we are very close to creating artificial life in computers. It is just a question of time before we develop the adequate technology to do so. It could already be argued that computer viruses are alive.
Life is, in a way, just a lot of stuff that carries genetic information around. Every living thing is subject to evolution, and the DNA that develops the most adaptable living organism around it will stay in the game. So, is DNA life, then? if you take DNA out of it’s hull, it certainly is a very complex molecule, but it can not do anything by itself. This is where viruses make everything more complicated. They are basically strings of RNA or DNA in a small hull and need cells to do something. We are not sure if they count as living or dead, and still, there are 225,000,000 m3 of viruses on Earth. There are even viruses that invade dead cells and reanimate them so they can be a host for them, which blurs the line even more.
So what is life? Things, processes, DNA, information? One thing is for sure: the idea that life is fundamentally different from non-living things because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than inanimate objects turned out to be wrong. Before Charles Darwin, who advocated the theory of evolution through natural selection, in his groundbreaking work On the Origin of Species; humans drew a line between themselves and the rest of living things; there was something magical about us that made us special. Once we had to accept that we are like every living being, a product of evolution, we drew a different line. However, the more we learn about what computers can do and how life works, the closer we get to creating the first machine that fits our description of life, the more our re-imagining of ourselves is in danger.
Mitochondria, the power plants of most complex cells, were previously free-living bacteria that entered a partnership with bigger cells. They still have their own DNA and can multiply on their own, but they are not alive anymore; they are dead. This can be understood as a trade, between their own life, for the survival of their DNA, which means living things can evolve into dead things if it’s Top left: Image from hiroshima and nagasaki
Bottom: Painting of injured soldiers in WWI, http://www.gilliesarchives.org.uk/
Your physical existence is made up of cells, trillions of them, a cell is a living organism, a machine made up to fifty thousand different proteins. It has no consciousness, no will, no purpose; it just is, but it is still an individual entity. Together, your cells form huge structures 114
The production of the research project may be created from a series of works across different mediums. The project will be realized through a multi-model series of artworks that inform and interrelate to each other. This will include interactive work, visuals/photography, painting or sculptural three-dimensional paintings representing dreams with surrealist elements, all of which will consider the experience of the viewer. The Mirrors Project previously developed in Studio One can be a good start for this project to develop creative and visual work, where consideration will be given to creating my own visuals and photography through visual research and data collection.
for jobs. If you extract cells from our body and put them in the right environment they will continue to stay alive for a while; your cells can exist without you but you can’t exist without them. Where is the line where a pile of your cells stops being you? If you donate an organ(s), billions of cells will continue to live on inside someone else; does this mean that a part of you became a part of another person, or is that other body is keeping a part of you alive? The image of ourselves as a static entity is untenable. Almost all of your cells have to die during your lifetime. Every time your cells’ setup changes, you are slightly different than before, so a part of you is dying constantly. So what you consider yourself is only a snapshot. We know that we are made up of trillions of little components that are constantly changing, which makes us not static, but dynamic. Their composition and condition is changing constantly, meaning that we might be a selfsustaining pattern without clear boarders. We gained self-awareness at some point in our evolution and now we have the ability to think about ourselves and question who we are through time and space; where in every moment, a new dynamic change exists.
The collection of data will be through conducted through interviews with patients of mental illness, and the collection of video and audio will be considered separately to be able to manipulate different elements for the development of this project. The concept of simulation could turn into a series of sculptures were the human is turning into a robot parallel to a series of other sculptures that turn from a robot to a human being.
Erwin Schrödinger - Biographical”. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 20 Feb 2018. https://bit. ly/1OD26lK Stafford, Tom. “Future .” BBC, BBC, 18 Feb. 2015, https://bbc.in/2kOHAmx Kurzgesagt. YouTube, YouTube, 21 Sept. 2017, www. youtube.com/watch?v=tlTKTTt47WE. “Elon Musk.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 9 Feb. 2018, www.biography.com/people/elonmusk-20837159. Etzioni, Oren. “How to Regulate Artificial Intelligence.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Sept. 2017, https://nyti.ms/2Jb528k. “Humans Should Be Very VERY Concerned About Artificial Intelligence.” Elon Musk Says Humans Should Be Very VERY Concerned About Artificial Intelligence!, Mox News, 16 July 2017, Humans Should Be Very VERY Concerned About Artificial Intelligence.
The subconscious is the most powerful force in understanding the nature of the self: what lies within the subconscious is more representational of who we are then our conscious minds. (Stafford, 2015) This is the question that raises the concept of paradox. Start by Documenting your dreams; then research for the reason behind them. Some people experience different types of sleeping for example rem sleep, sleep cycles, and sometimes awaken mid dream which means that you assume that you woke up because of your dream content and trauma. Other elements that you can experience while sleeping are, lack of deep sleep; mental illness, anxiety depression and much more. there is a relationship between the elements that where just mentioned and the recollection of dreams that are traumatic. The Power of the subconscious is that there is no free will. Recent studies show that conscious mind also has no free will. The subconscious is the source of personal perception, experiencing the world – and dreams
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References:
17 year old with marked proptosis, https://bit.ly/2MkHOh8
Effect of radioactive contamination from the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl in Ukraine, https://bit.ly/2tmRiBg
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The concept is developed in a way that focuses on the process of destruction; healing; and survival of nature. These three words combined together reflect the fascinating cycle that allows the process of evolution and growth in nature. It’s the concept of breaking in order to fix.
DESREGULATION Lamyaa Rady
The main three concepts of destruction, healing and survival, stem from the idea of immune system disorders, specifically Crohn’s disease, which attacks and damages its tissues within itself. The immune system is a network of cells, tissues, and organs that work together to defend the body against attacks by “foreign” invaders. Yet immune system disorders cause abnormally low activity or over activity of the immune system. In cases of immune system over activity, the body attacks and damages its own tissues, referred to as autoimmune diseases. One of the disorders caused by high activity of the immune system is Crohn’s disease1. The disease occurs due to a disruption in the immune system, thus destroying its operative function. The body recognizes the disease as something that it should reproduce. The immune system attacks the digestive tract, causing inflammation and tissue damage. This inspired the first concept of ‘destruction’. The immune system, that is the defense of the body, is attacking itself causing major destruction to the body that it’s supposed to be defending from “foreign” invaders. After the destruction occurs, healing is necessary. Now that the body is incapable of fixing itself due to an error in the body’s defense system (immune disease), surgeries and medications are mandatory for the body to survive. Thus, there is this one continuous and unified cycle of destruction, healing and survival that is necessary for one’s body to outlast and grow. The very existence of growth is not attainable without the process of destruction and healing. Destruction, 1 Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of the intestines, especially the colon and ileum, associated with ulcers and fistulae. 118
healing and survival inspire the concept of ‘breaking in order to fix’. The same concept applies not only to the human body, but also to human identity. This relates to the late German Philosopher Nietzsche and his theory of The Overman. The Overman, (Übermesnsch in German) discusses that if man seeks to realize their true potential, one needs to recognize their current position before moving on to a greater self. To envision the true potential of humanity as a whole, each individual needs to go through the process of self-creation, thus overcoming their current state and moving on to the endless potential of that becoming. For instance, in order for the creation of ideas in art, philosophy, literature, etc. one must constantly re-evaluate all values, morality, ideologies of themselves and society. This way a constant generation of knowing and understanding emerges. Kafka summarizes this concept in his quote: “one must throw one’s life away in order to gain it.” Looking back at the evolutionary timeline of nature, one will uncover how each destructive process led to growth, thus the development of our current, civilization, environment and biology. Conceptual Development The earth since the beginning of its birth has 119
always moved in a natural cycle. This system goes from as big as the universe to as little as the birth of an insect. The destruction of the human body is somehow related to the idea of human destruction vs. natural destruction. Somehow a connection in visual form is present between the two (mushroom clouds): for instance, a cloud over an Asteroid hitting earth and the expositions of an Atomic bomb mushroom (Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The field of geography demonstrates how earth survived many man-made disasters such as atomic bombs and wars as well as natural disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes, ice ages and asteroids hitting earth. The earth since the beginning of its birth has always evolved in a structured way. In order to survive over time, it destructs itself through disasters yet heals itself again in order to survive. However, destruction always feels like chaos in a sense yet one can find a structure or a system in destruction; it is the concept of breaking to fix.
“Geological processes are dynamic processes at work in the earth’s landforms and surfaces. The mechanisms involved, weathering, erosion, and plate tectonics, combine processes that are in some respects destructive and in others constructive.”
Weathering, erosion and plate tectonics are three ways the earth constructs itself after events of destruction. Weathering for instance is the breaking up of surfaces by forces through air and water of the atmosphere. Differences in temperature between very hot days and cold nights cause rocks to expand and contract. In time this too helps break them up. Although this might seem like destruction of rocks formations is taking place, this process allows for changes in the landscape by wearing down mountains, filling in valleys, and making rivers appear and disappear. This process is called ‘Erosion’ which begins with a process of weathering; Erosion is a natural process which is usually made by rock and soil being loosened from the earth’s surface at one location and moved to another. This process shows that in order for something new to emerge another has to be broken: “Breaking in order to fix”. Another demonstration of how destruction occurs in nature is the plate tectonics theory2. It’s a theory that explains the structure of the earth’s crust and many associated phenomena as resulting from the interaction of rigid lithospheric plates which move slowly over the underlying mantle. This might be viewed as destruction yet the this break of the land allowed continental boundaries and oceans to form, which allowed for existence and survival 2 Treated as singular A theory explaining the structure of the earth’s crust and many associated phenomena as resulting from the interaction of rigid lithospheric plates which move slowly over the underlying mantle. Monarch chrysalis transformation in Idaho, Photo by Becky O’Neill, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
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of living entities. The examples above elaborate the theory of breaking in order to fix. Healing is a systematic process. This process is usually done by the body itself yet if the healing processes is not happening due to an autoimmune disease then chemical treatment is crucial. The next step was researching in the field of chemistry and how medically one can treat an autoimmune disease. Unfortunately, there is no other treatment other than Immunosuppressant drugs which are a class of drugs that suppress, or reduce, the strength of the body’s immune system. This helps lower the attacks that the immune system performs on the body. Again, the idea of breaking in order to fix appears in medically treating an autoimmune disease through drugs that weaken the body’s already broken immune system. An alternative Left Image: Medical-hypnosis
for the process of destruction, healing and survival was found in Entomology3 which is the study of insects. The life cycle of a butterfly starts as with an egg laid on a leaf. The larva (caterpillar) hatches from an egg and then the leaf the egg was on. The first bite of milkweed is a dangerous one, because milkweed latex can act like glue. Some caterpillars die from that first meal because their mouths gum up. The survival of the caterpillar is jeopardized and most of them die. If it manages to survive, the caterpillar digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues. Certain highly organized groups of cells known as imaginal discs4 survive the digestive process. Some of these discs are the memory of the caterpillar. This process relates to the concept of breaking in order to fix as the butterfly is an insect that destructs itself into a liquid to transform and renew its own body and shape. Afterwards the butterfly emerges into a flying adult that will later on continue the cycle. Another field that questions the idea of marking the body is ‘Bio-art5 which is a recent artistic movement that blends both “art” and “biology” together. Bio-artists work on animals, including humans, in terms of the modification of bodies, genetic modifications, hybrids, robotic symbiosis. These transformations play with fears traditionally inspired by science or 3 The branch of zoology concerned with the study of insects. 4 A thickening of the epidermis of an insect larva which, on pupation, develops into a particular organ of the adult insect. 5 Bio-Art is an art practice where humans work with live tissues, bacteria, living organisms, and life processes.
technology. This works in contradiction to the treatment of an autoimmune disease which requires surgery that leaves healing tissues and scars on the body. Stelarc’s Bio-art, includes the artist halfimplanted, half-growing an ear on his own arm. It draws from previous projects Extra Ear, which imaged an extra ear on the side of the head, and 1/4 Scale Ear, which involved growing replicas of the artist’s ear with scaffolds and living stem cells. The difference between Bio Art and the self-destruction of the body is that one is controlled and the other isn’t. Bio Art is self-destructive in a way as the person chooses to forgo a permeant change to their body. An autoimmune disease on the other hand happens involuntarily as the body chooses to destruct itself. Furthermore, there is surprisingly a relationship between the start of life cycle and an autoimmune disease. Looking into the feild of Astrophysics, one finds that a star has a constant fight between gravity (at its core) and the gases surrounding it. Throughout a stars’ life, stars fight the inward pull of the force of gravity. It is only the outward pressure created by the nuclear reactions pushing away from the star’s core that keeps the star intact. But these nuclear reactions require fuel, in particular hydrogen. Eventually the supply of hydrogen runs out and the star begins its demise. Depending on the size of the star, it either turns into a white dawarf6 6 A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to that of 122
or a supernova7 (explosion) occurs and the star itself ends up being a black hole8 or a neutron star9. This process compares to the auto immune disease in a sense that there is a constant fight between the body and the immune disease causing inflammation which endangers the survival of the body. If not treated by medication (hydrogena) inner bleeding can occur (explosion) and the body would not survive. So its fight between the internal and external conditions due to a chemical imbalance is relevant in star as well as the body. The way the body destructs itself in this context can be understood as analogous to an exploding star. The final artwork will consist of a three-piece capsule collection that merges the concepts of: autoimmune disease; transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly; as well as the life cycle of the star; each look will represent a concept. The pieces aren’t regular clothing items, instead they will be wearable sculpture pieces that use fashion technology to transform into various forms and shapes. The pieces are Avant-garde10 pieces that express new and experimental ideas. the Sun, while its volume is comparable to that of Earth. 7 A star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness because of a catastrophic explosion that rejects most of its mass. 8 A region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation can escape 9 A celestial object of very small radius and very high density, composed predominantly of closely packed neutrons. 10 Favoring or introducing new and experimental ideas and methods.
The installation will be on three models standing next to each other with sound that give a mood of suspense. The background and flooring will be very minimal to avoid any distraction from the wearable sculptures. The minimalism will also give it that contemporary feel. The first sculpture will present autoimmune disease. This outfit is imagined to be selfdestructed, yet with a natural element such as water or fire. The second piece will show the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The caterpillar uses silk in order to wrap herself and later on transform herself into a butterfly. This will be shown through the use of silk fabric and its movement against the human body. Lastly, the third piece will illustrate the life cycle of a star. The struggle between gravity and the chemical gases will be highlighted until the potential explosion/death of the star. This process will be shown through the final piece. References: Harvey, Andrew. The Return of the Mother. J.P. Tarcher/ Putnam, 2001. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Thomas Wayne. Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is ; &, the Antichrist: a Curse on Christianity. Algora Pub., 2004. Popova, Maria. “When Things Fall Apart: Tibetan Buddhist Nun and Teacher Pema Chödrön on Transformation Through Difficult Times.” Brain Pickings, 14 July 2017, www.brainpickings.org/2017/07/17/when-things-fallapart-pema-chodron/. 124
The Cost of the Priceless Malak Shenouda
Value is an immaterial concept that is attributed to objects, places and things based on abstract concepts; however it is translated into the most material of things such as price tags, money, contracts, receipts and ownership documents. Whether the art market assigns value to art pieces on the basis of abstract criteria, or the attribution of value to personal goods or property; it is all based on objective or intangible measures, which are then translated into the most economic, material and descriptive forms. The act and process of translating the immaterial concept of value into very descriptive and material medium is the main concept of this project. Personal archives have great amounts of official documents. Official documents are examined by many contemporary artists, who deal with documents, as archival, political and personal materials, which also exists within a wider historical context. The oxford dictionary defines a document as “A piece of written, printed, or electronic matter that provides information or evidence or that serves as an official record.” Anthropological research on bureaucratic documents occurred recently, perceiving them “not as neutral purveyors of discourse, but as mediators that shape the significance of the signs Declared Void II, Carey Young, 2013
inscribed on them and their relations with the objects they refer to” (Hull 2012). In the study of Anthropology humans and tribes practice rituals and rites of passage, marking an important stage in someone’s life, and the transition from different phases of life such as from childhood to adulthood, marriage, and death. One could say that a paper with some writing also, undergoes a rite of passage to become an official document. This transition from paper to document seems to include specific stamps, signatures from specific people and registration codes.
Social scientists, who study human behavior in its wider social context, might use official documents to trace a person’s daily routine, habits, and decision-making preferences. Having enough documents that cover an entire year for example, allows the creation of a daily journal for a specific person. This journal, it’s language, the form of representation that it adopts, and it’s kind of narrative also reveal a lot about the individual’s personal life. Locating this personal journal in the larger historical context of the country or the world helps historians analyze how big political changes affect individual’s lives, from the biggest event to the smallest decision. Also the extent of influence of colonization is evident in many historical official documents.
Designers trace the different fonts and stamps in the evolution of a country’s official documents, and turn them into contemporary patterns, fonts, designs, jewelry and fashion. Economists use such archival documents to trace the monetary value of commodities and property, to compare it to contemporary prices. This allows them to understand inflation, currencies and economic changes in history. Writers trace the names and addresses of such documents to create a narrative or find the story behind the documents. Authors and filmmaker then are free to use this material for documentaries or biographies. Several artists have worked with official documents all over the world. Ash Moniz’s last exhibition “In The Anticipation of a Future Need to Know” in Townhouse Gallery discussed the performative rituals involved in the production of official documents and physical records and reflected on the bureaucratic system in Egypt. Other artists choose to present the actual official documents but use a technique called “Erasure” also known as “blackout poetry” to cover most of the words with black paint, only leaving few a words, thus completely changing the content of the document. This practice is rather satirical and is seen as an act of rebellion against authority and power structures. Some of the earliest artists and 126
poets that used this technique were D.A. Levy and Doris Cross in the 1960s. This technique is yet another attempt to use official documents in their material form, however reinvent and represent them in a way that changes their whole purpose and context. The space between fact and fiction is a central concept that this research project examines. The term “official documents” implies that there are also unofficial documents. The difference between both is the credibility of the document. It is only official when its authenticity is verified by authorities, signed, stamped, approved by people occupying specific positions in a bureaucratic system. This process is not as simple as it seems. Getting approval from people in power is not always a simple task. People in charge of making a document official might abuse this power for their own benefit. People tend to forge, fabricate or replicate official documents, removing any evidence of its inauthenticity. Forgery and replication is the act of creating an identical copy or imitation of a document, signature, banknote, or work of art. This copy seems believable and official to the observer. Fabrication on the other hand is the action or process of manufacturing or inventing something fictional, which never existed in the first place.
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Many conceptual artists work with this dichotomy of fact and fiction, official and fake, fabricated and authentic documentation in all its forms. An example for these artists is Walid Raad, who created a fictional online archive called “Atlas Group”. This archive includes audio, visual and literary materials aiming to document the contemporary history of Lebanon. However, most of this material is not authentic and is created by Walid Raad himself. In this case fictional documents are used to question historical narratives as well as suggest a different perspective of unheard accounts (Lepecki 2006). Another Lebanese artist, Rabih Mroue, explores this concept of fact and fiction, when discussing personal and collective memories. “Although some people try to, remembering every instant is impossible. When we recall a certain event, images and moments come back into our minds and when we try to narrate them we try to fill the gaps in-between. In that way, the fiction starts to interfere and becomes part of our narrative – even unconsciously” (Erin 2016, web) Similarly, a previous project by the researcher, also examined the lines of fact and fiction, looking into how the public is represented in
national Egyptian history. The project is titled “”كبري قصر النيل, Kasr el Nil Bridge and includes one hundred archival postcards of this landmark. The collection incorporates ten postcards that were digitally manipulated. There is aesthetic uniformity in all the postcards, which blurs the line between truth and fiction when it comes to national historical narrative. “As scholars increasingly discover and focus upon context, it is essential to reconsider the relationship between archives and the societies that create and use them. At the heart of that relationship is power. Yet power – power to make records of certain events and ideas and not of others, power to name, label, and order records to meet business, government, or personal needs, power to preserve the record, power to mediate the record, power over access, power over individual rights and freedoms, over collective memory and national identity – is a concept largely absent from the traditional archival perspective.” (Schwartz and Cook 2002, p.5)
Two Small Copper Coins (Luke 21:2) Good Pleasing and Perfect (Romans 12:2) Will be told in memory of her (Matthew 26:13)
All these artists worked on challenging authority and the dominant power structures that enable them, in manipulating historical documentation, yet few were found that worked directly with found official documents. Since official documents have become very normalized and are integrated in our everyday life, 128
one fails to realize that most of these documents record rather immaterial concepts. Treaties signed for peace, marriage certificates signed on the base of love, death certificates record the end of a life and so on. Similarly, a piece of paper such as a birth certificate or identification is constantly needed to prove the existence of an evident material body, which raises a question of agency, identity and authenticity. The immaterial often becomes materialized in official documents, and vise versa. For an immaterial concept to be documented in writing it must be associated with physical and behavioral characteristics. What if one signs a contract selling one’s energy; as an independent-being, existing on its own? What if someone signs a contract allowing another party to rent his emotions, for a specific period of time? What if someone gives up on a certain belief system and 129
Detail, Doris Cross, Unknown
Top Left Image: Unknown
decides to record this in a death certificate? How would these intangible concepts be materialized and described as independent objects? What empirical characteristics would be associated to each item? Would these concepts turn into commodities, with descriptions, barcodes, functions, and visual or physical features? Official documents, like rental agreements for example, include a detailed description of the land; it’s condition, its uses, its geographical location as well as its size and the space it occupies. If the idea of creating official documents of abstract ideas and immaterial concepts is adopted – ideas such as feelings, energy, belief or creativity- one needs to clarify and codify their characteristics. An official document, no matter how abstract the object of discussion, will need to have a detailed description of the object in question.
Top Middle: Duchamp with Bicycle Wheel, 1913
Poetry also tends to turn abstract concepts into words, using metaphors from our physical reality to illustrate the immaterial aspect of human experience. Contemporary poetry proved to be, in relation to this research, rather direct and shallow in terms of materializing the immaterial human experiences, such as emotions, ideas, energy and beliefs. However, the combination of literature, text and conceptual art has been done before. Artists such as Rene Magritte, Joseph Kosuth, and Jasper Johns have used text in art to tackle the idea of representation. Even though Rene Magritte is most known for The Treachery of Images (1929) he also published an article titled “Les mots et les images” (Magritte 1929) discussing how images aren’t complete depictions of reality, nor are words. These forms are mere representations that mirror reality. This thought was carried on by Joseph Kosuth’s
Top Right: The Treachery of Images, René Magritte, 1929
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projects. One and Three Chairs represents one object –the chair- using three different mediums, and questions the limits of representation and reality. He later went on to use text, particularly neon text installations, in his work. Kosuth adapted the field of conceptual writing and conceptual poetry in the field of art. Conceptual writing is achieved “by employing the use of icon-based imagery (poem as image). To “get” the idea of conceptual writing, you don’t really need to read it; it’s not predicated upon knowing a language, as much as it is upon knowing a concept. Thus, conceptual writing often invokes a thinkership rather than a readership” (Goldsmith). Another artist who worked with ready-mades and was later adopted by Kosuth, is Duchamp, who notoriously worked with readymade objects rather than texts.
argues in his article “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” that the “aura” of an art piece is what gives it value. This aura is explained in terms of the uniqueness of the object, which is not just aesthetic but mainly biographical and historical, referring to all its owners, exhibition locations, travels, awards and so on. An example for that would be Shehata’s award-winning Dissertation at Goldsmiths, on “secondhand stuff”, when her interviewer discovered a Mahmoud Said painting at a secondhand store, which only gained it’s value, when it was recognized by him as a painting of one of the pioneers of Modern Egyptian Art. Thus the value resides in very complex socio-cultural relations and abstract concepts, rather than the material criteria. This abstract aura is then translated into numbers, currency and price tags.
When going back and looking at official documents, one can derive two main concepts: the first is the use of literature and text as a primary medium of representation. The second concept in official documents is the detailed description of abstract concepts such as value and ownership. The value of an art piece is an abstract concept, based on abstract criteria, however in the context of the art market it is translated into numbers, prices, money and contracts, which are material forms. This is even more evident in ready-made art like Duchamp’s Fountain, that can be reduced tremendously when looked at in an itemized and functional way. However, it ascribes value through immaterial criteria of the art market as well as creative, moral and monetary value. Walter Benjamin (1936)
This concept can be visually presented in a project that adopts the text format of official documents. Through the use of “ready-made texts” a text-based art piece can be developed. Reducing an art piece to a list of items and materials, will strip it from its attributed value and “aura”. The project will adopt the contract’s form of text to question the immaterial idea of value. Just like a contract reduces concepts down to characteristics and items, the project may work on itemizing the material components of the artwork and the value of each item. Further research may be conducted on the combination of text and conceptual art, as well as the mediums that can be used for this text installation (eg. Paper prints, neon text, framed text, etc.).
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References: Benjamin, Walter. The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Penguin UK, 2008. Erin. “Rabih Mroué in conversation with Goöksu Kunak at Ibraaz.” On the Boards, 25 Jan. 2016 Goldsmith, Kenneth. “Conceptual Writing: A Worldview by Kenneth Goldsmith.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org Hull, Matthew S. “Documents and Bureaucracy.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 41, no. 1, 2012, pp. 251–267. Lepecki, André. ““After All, This Terror Was Not Without Reason”: Unfiled Notes on the Atlas Group Archive.” TDR/The Drama Review 50.3 (2006): 88-99. Magritte, René. 1929. “Les Mots et les Images.” La Révolution surréaliste 12: 32–33. Rottenberg, Jonathan, and James J. Gross. “When emotion goes wrong: Realizing the promise of affective science.” Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 10.2 (2003): 227-232. Schwartz, Joan M., and Terry Cook. “Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory.” Archival Science, vol. 2, no. 1-2, 2002, pp. 1–19 Shehata, Eman. “Material Worlds, Material Lives: An Ethnographic Study of Secondhand Stuff in Cairo.” Goldsmiths , 2017.
Self Described Twice, Joseph Kosuth, 1966
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Illusion of control Maryam El Azzawy
The relationship between game art and illusion is what this project will aim to address. Game art is designed to put the player in a state of illusion; illusion of control and illusion of choice. By manipulating the mind, illusion of control is created. There is no control over the game; it is destined and designed to end in a certain way. Since illusion is a sensory experience, just like magic practices, what happens inside the game exists only within this fantastical world, but has no existence in reality. The mind is forced 133
to think in a certain way and perceive what’s happening in that specific way. Based on Sturge Moore’s theory, this is done by two forces: physical force and psychological force. Myfanwy Ashmore’s Super Mario Trilogy was a game art piece of hacked Super Mario game, that is stripped out of all the elements in the game except for Mario and the wall he walks on. The player watches Mario as he just goes for a walk, dance and run without enemies, enhancing drugs or money. When the player
decides to make Mario jump into the water, he finally gets out of breath and dies. In this piece, there is an illusion of choice, where the player, in the reality of the game is not given any choice, and the character is destined to die, based on the game design. This example is similar to when a magician makes the audience choose a certain card, the audience doesn’t have any choice. However, they get to believe that they do, and this is what makes it mind-blowing. By creating a world of fantasy, video games draw the mind into this world by deluding it 134
that it is creating its own world. It is a sort of escape from reality; creating several fantastical scenarios that makes the brain think. Just like day-dreaming, it narrows down the awareness of its surroundings to create this fantastical world. However, unlike magic practices and video games, the brain gets to control the scenarios taking place inside the head during the day-dreaming episodes. During this episode, the brain is held prisoner, consciously, creating an alternate world within. The fantastical world that the brain makes up is very subjective, based on the perception of each person, giving it an illusion of truth. According to Moore, the illusion happens due to physical force and psychological force. The physical force is when something stands out from all the other things, while the psychological force is when the brain is manipulated to think that a specific card is the best one to choose for the trick. If there are forces that drive the brain to believe that it chose what it chose, then reality is manipulated resulting in consensual reality, but not necessarily the truth. Thomas Sturge Moore stated that the perceiving of physical things is very subjective. Seeing blue can differ from one person to another and the truth could never be found. According to his theory, material things have little evidence of existence just like sensations, in space and time. In other words, they exist indirectly through the mediation of sense data. Freud’s theory of the unconscious adds to this theory by questioning whether visual perception derives from the imagination or memory. 135
The human body and brain is limited by outer forces of the universe. To produce magic, physicality must take place to produce an illusion, as a result. The relationship between physicality (in its most materialistic sense) and magic are what produce illusion. Therefore, is magic real or fantasy? As Freud’s psychoanalysis theory explains, what a person experiences unconsciously, ought to be real. Magic, therefore, doesn’t ground a person to any roots of reality. Nevertheless, it takes away from reality but sends subliminal messages. Just like games. They take children into another world, a world of imagination, for a couple of minutes or hours, and snaps them out of this world. Therefore, it is a temporary experience. Illusion is, also, considered a form of control, done by magicians and politicians to control minds by drawing the attention somewhere else and distorting the content out of its context. Magic is a practice in which the mind is manipulated. This is done by creating a delusion that the brain forms to believe what is happening in front of the eyes. Magic is known for its two practices, ritual and energetic. Energetic magic is a theory that explains how magic is a power of force that flows through nature, people and things. Among these two concepts, a third one came out explaining that magic can arise from the mind. And this kind of magic is a balance between the energetic and ritual. It is a form of creative energy. Magic as a practice has been existed since Ancient Egypt and it developed 136
in many other places and cultures over time. However, with the rise of religions, the practice has been faced with opposition since it interferes with god’s power. The only practice that could continue was Alchemy. Conclusion The production will be an installation of a designed video game that the audience must interact with. It will be in a dark room, to enhance the experience and make the players immersed inside what will be happening. It will aim to show the relationship between the illusion of control and freedom of the mind. The game, however, will be designed in controlled and set boundaries, with a destined finale. Within the game, there is the magic circle in which the player enters or steps into to lose all sense of reality (an enclosed space) this is viewed as controlled fantasy and illusion.
References: Not Coming to a Theater Near You. Not Coming to a Theater Near You, www.notcoming.com/features/cremastercycle/. Smith, Ryan. “Jeanette Andrews Is Transforming Magic into a Contemporary Art Form.” Chicago Reader, Chicago Reader, 5 Nov. 2017, www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/jeanette-andrews-magicianmuseum-contemporaryart-siegfried-roy/Content?oid=24084954. Carbon, Claus-Christian. “Understanding Human Perception by Human-Made Illusions.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Frontiers Media S.A., 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC4
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Left Image: Sacred Geometry (Divine Feminine) Art Print by Patterns Of Life, https://bit.ly/2K4rdBJ
“The Logic of Magic.” Philosophy Now: a Magazine of Ideas, philosophynow.org/issues/5/The_Logic_ of_Magic. Lazerowitz, Morris. “Philosophy and Illusion.” Philosophy and Illusion, Routledge, 2015, pp. 99–118. Lazerowitz, Morris. “On Perceiving Things .” Philosophy and Illusion, Routledge, 2015, pp. 189–200. “Contemporary Mind-Boggling Illusion Art Examples We Love.” Widewalls, www.widewalls.ch/illusion-art/. kyriacos70, et al. “Order Is But An Illusion, Chaos Is All There Is.” Steemit, 2 Sept. 2016, steemit.com/life/@ kyriacos/order-is-but-an-illusion-chaos-is-all-there-is. Clark, Josh. “Do Parallel Universes Really Exist? .” How Stuff Works , science.howstuffworks.com/science-vsmyth/everyday-myths/parallel-universe.htm. Fries, Amy. “The Great Paradox: Daydreaming vs. Mindfulness.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 1 July 2009, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-powerdaydreaming/200907/the-great-paradox-daydreamingvs-mindfulness. Kaufman, Scott Barry. “The Need for Pretend Play in Child Development.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 6 Mar. 2012, www.psychologytoday.com/ blog/beautiful-minds/201203/the-need-pretend-play-inchild-development. “Researching Imaginative Play and Adult Consciousness: Implications for Daily and Literary Creativity.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, psycnet.apa.org/ record/2009-20809-002.
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The Nation of Non-Botany Mariam Hamdy This project aims at creating a new feminist nation, where its population would be governed by a commonly agreed upon manifesto. This nation would create a virtual and heterotopic reality away from the previously conceived notions of patriarchy and capitalism. In a way, it would be juxtaposing this heterotopic reality into our everyday. This project will be created through extensive interviews, publications and live recordings. Iman is an Egyptian woman and mother of ten. Her father was martyred in the 6th October War, and since then, she was assigned the role of taking care of the family. Her tasks included ensuring everyone is progressing in their work, while she stays at home, cleaning, cooking and attending to the home. The men in Iman’s
family have a very important role; they were seen as sacred and should not be defied. The men have the final say in everything, even if the woman does not like or agree. Iman got married at the age of twenty-two and gave birth to her first child, Zahra, not too long after getting married. She became a stay at home mom for five years, during which time she had three other children. She returned to work after the her fourth child, but she was still expected to take care of the house, with no help from the father whatsoever. The father was only expected to work and not help with the house chores. Only the mother was expected to care for the family and the home. These kinds of roles and expectations are not new to any Egyptian, or to many Middle Easterners, for that matter. Political violence is a term used to describe violence perpetrated, either by a person or a government, in order to achieve a certain political goal. These goals are often set in order to secure a pre-established and desirable position. In contemporary Egyptian society, various forms of violence are practiced against women, along with racial and sexual minorities everyday, in order to secure a higher position on the social, economic and political hierarchies. They can vary from basic day-to-
day interactions to direct institutional sexism. There are three explanations behind political violence: institutional, ideational, and individual. Institutional violence is when an existing institution incites violence or restricts human activity, provoking a backlash. Ideational violence is when ideas promote the use of violence, i.e. religious fundamentalism. Finally, individual violence is when a strategic plan is put into place, which would eventually lead to violence, i.e. humiliation.1 Usually, violence can be categorized into two different types: subjective and objective2. Subjective violence is directly experienced through relationships of domination, i.e bullying, a boss, theft, etc. Subjective violence is easily identifiable and can occur anywhere at any time. To be able to identify subjective violence, one would have to compare the incident to other 1 O’Neil, Patrick H. Essentials of Comparative Politics. W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. 2 Zizek, Slavoj. Violence: six sideways reflections. Profile Books, 2009.
situations where it doesn’t usually happen, as well as, calculate the harm. In a way, this could create a form of juxtaposition between the incident and “normal” everyday life. This leads to the second type of violence: objective violence. Objective violence is “the type of violence inherent to this ‘normal’ state of things. [It] is invisible since it sustains the very zero-level standard against which we perceive something as subjectively violent.”3 This means that objective violence basically constitutes the background of our everyday lives. There are two forms of objective violence: symbolic and systemic. Both types have no single perpetrator, and are often practiced in the background of the everyday. Symbolic violence can be seen through the type of language people speak and how this language is formed. Systemic violence, on the other hand, revolves around that which is involved with the political and economic system as a whole, i.e capitalism 3 Zizek, Slavoj
and the institutional ‘isms’ (i.e. institutional sexism). For years, women (and minorities) have faced some form of violence in their everyday lives. This can be seen through basic everyday interactions (such as harassment), linguistic bias, and institutional biases. Women and minorities have been, and still are, treated as Other. In a way, these groups of people have been Orientalized to fit a patriarchal and capitalist mold. Edward Said points out that “orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction between ‘the orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the occident’.”4 Simply put, for one to be able to identify who they are, one would have to create a distinction between themselves 4 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Vintage Books, 2003.
and others through “contrasting images.” While knowing who one is can be a good thing, it becomes exceptionally problematic when put in a binary setting. Here, men play the role of the ‘occident’, while women are assigned the role of the ‘orient’. This binary setting reinforces a “violent hierarchy”, where “one of the two terms governs the other”5. This binary setting further enables various forms of subjective and objective violence on those who are Othered. Ordinarily, those who are Othered have a difficult time establishing themselves where they are Othered. This is due to oppressive institutional systems of governance that hegemonizes that Other. Said later adds that “orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the orient dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, and ruling over it.”6 This is particularly evident in the way men gaze at women. The (heterosexual) male gaze is a feminist philosophical term describing the world, and women, as represented in art and literature from a male point of view, and often represent women as the objects of male 5 Derrida, Jacques (1992). Positions. p. 41. 6 Said, Edward. 141
pleasure.7 In Ways of Seeing, John Berger points out that :
”According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome. men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” - John Berger
Previous research attempted to question the popular understanding of what femininity is8. The conclusion was that these understandings have been used to suppress women. More in depth research into the topics of history and biology only proved that men and women are different, and not really in the binary setting of superior/inferior. “One is not born a woman, but becomes one” wrote Simone de Beauvoir9. She goes on to explain how “we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman.” De Beauvoir 7 Eaton, A. W. “Feminist Philosophy of Art.” Philosophy Compass, vol. 3, no. 5, 2008. 8 Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Vintage Classic, 2015 9 Beauvoir, Simone de.
believes that women have been treated as inferior for three reasons: 1. women are taught to fulfill men’s needs, therefore existing in relation to men, 2. women are also taught to seek external validation of her worth, and 3. women historically have had less rights, therefore less public influence. Language played an important role as to why women have been treated as inferior to men. The common language used in everyday life is, therefore, biased and is in favor of men. Ralph Fasold points out that women deal with two types of linguistic discrimination: firstly “in the way they are taught to use the language” and secondly in how the language used treats them.10 Guimei He adds by giving the example of English lexicons, in which she explains how sexist it can be. Some of the examples she gives include: Masculine Feminine Prince Princess Poet Poetess Duke Duchess 10 He, Guimei. “An Analysis of Sexism in English.” Journal of Language Teaching and Research, vol. 1, no. 3, May 2010.
She notes that “this kind of word formulation seems to tell that women are derived from men and attached to men … [This] usually does more than simply change the gender reference of the word, it often attaches a meaning of triviality, of lesser status or dependence to the term”.11 Several linguistic theories also support this claim. One of which is the Muted Group Theory (MGT), where muteness is a result of a lack of power. As a result, the “muted” individuals are often overlooked and rendered invisible.12 It is strongly related with power and how it can be used against people. This theory is strongly related to the relationship between men and women, and their methods of communication. It assumes that language is culturally bound, and goes on to explain how men give meaning to language, making it more biased towards males. This allows men to express their ideas and knowledge in a way that suits them the most, leaving women with a weaker method of communication, and having them eventually silenced. The MGT makes three assumptions: (1) men and women perceive the world differently because they have different perception-shaping experiences. Those 11 He, Guimei. 12 L. West, Richard. Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application. Turner Lynn H., (Sixth Ed.). New York, NY.
different experiences are a result of men and women performing different tasks in society. (2) Men enact their power politically, perpetuating their power and suppressing women’s ideas and meanings from gaining public acceptance. (3) Women must convert their unique ideas, experiences, and meanings into male language in order to be heard.13
”One is not born a woman, but becomes one.” - Simone de Beauvoir
Sacred Circle - One of the most relevant artworks is Sacred Circle by the Canadian artist, Rosalie Maheux. For this piece, she had created multiple “sacred circles”, where she would use pictures of naked women to create symmetrical geometric shapes. She wanted to use recognizable, symmetrical icons that would be often found in nature and mix them with human sexuality. She wanted to play with opposition and believes her work to fall under the umbrella of feminist artwork. The piece(s) are about 84cm x 84cm and were placed in John B Aird Gallery in the lobby of a government office block in the heart of Toronto’s financial district. Her work resembles religious rituals, in the sense that there is 13 http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/theory/mutedgrp.html
repetition of very similar “actions”. This strongly mimics Sufi rituals, where Sufi sheikhs would gather around in circles and sing to God.14 The Dinner Party - this piece of work was created by Judy Chicago in 1979, where she recreated The Last Supper, but from the women’s perspective since women have always prepared the food and attended to household chores. This work has its roots deep into politics and religion, and attempts to represent feminine history that’s often suppressed by patriarchy. The work was created with the combination of male dominated “work” with “feminine” crafts, such as textile art and ceramic decorations. The production of this piece eventually resembled a triangular “dinner table”, that could fit up to thirty women, who come from different points of history in Western civilization.15 Driving the World to Destruction - Through a series of drawings, paintings and bronze works, Judy Chicago looks at masculinity and how it has been represented, especially after her 14 “Video: Artist Rosalie H Maheux discusses ‘Sacred Circle XII’.” CityNews Toronto, 15 July 2015, toronto.citynews.ca/ video/2015/07/15/video-artist-rosalie-h-maheux-discusses-sacred-circle-xii/. 15 “Judy Chicago Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works.” The Art Story, www.theartstory.org/artist-chicago-judy-artworks. htm#pnt_3. 142
The Nation of Nonbotany Application Form
Official Use Only: Accepted By: _________________________ Date of Application: ____________________ Date of Application: ____________________
Stamp Application Number: __________ FPA: ______________________ __________________________
Please answer the following questions to the best of your ability: 1. What are your thoughts on Gender & Sexuality?
3. Are you a supporter of the BDS movement? Why?
5. What is your understanding of settler colonialism and indigenous rights?
3. Do you believe in BLM (Black Lives Matter)? Explain.
3. Do you think capitalism is exploitative? Explain.
trip to Rome. There, she noticed how (nude) men were represented. In one of her paintings, Chicago portrays a super-muscular male holding a steering wheel. Here, the steering wheel represents uncontrolled patriarchal power. In addition, the seemingly skinless figure creates a sense of vulnerability.16 Hannah Wilke Through The Large Glass - this piece was created by Hannah Wilke in 1976 where she criticized Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelor’s, Even. In his original work, Duchamp reduced human sexuality to machinery, and divides the male “bachelor” section form the female “bride” section. Wilke, however, challenges Duchamp’s mechanical portrayal of human sexuality by dressing in a fedora and white satin man’s suit, and striking fashion poses behind Duchamp’s piece. In her adaptation, Wilke tackles the issues of female/women’s representation and discusses how nothing has changed when it comes to female/women’s objectification.17
6. Can a human be illegal? Explain.
References: Beauvoir, Simone de. The second sex. Vintage Classic, 2015. Derrida, Jacques (1992). Positions. p. 41. Eaton, A. W. “Feminist Philosophy of Art.” Philosophy Compass, vol. 3, no. 5, 2008. He, Guimei. “An Analysis of Sexism in English.” Journal of Language Teaching and Research, vol. 1, no. 3, May 2010. Jones, Amelia. “Chapter 7.” The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, Routledge, 2010. “Judy Chicago Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works.” The Art Story, www.theartstory.org/artist-chicago-judyartworks.htm#pnt_3. L. West, Richard. Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application. Turner Lynn H., (Sixth Ed.). New York, NY. O’Neil, Patrick H. Essentials of Comparative Politics. W. W. Norton & Company, 2009 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Vintage Books, 2003 “Video: Artist Rosalie H Maheux discusses 'Sacred Circle XII'.” CityNews Toronto, 15 July 2015, toronto. citynews.ca/video/2015/07/15/video-artist-rosalie-hmaheux-discusses-sacred-circle-xii/ Zizek, Slavoj. Violence: six sideways reflections. Profile Books, 2009.
16 Judy Chicago. 17 https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/5050 143
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EGO-DEATH
Mapping Fear Menna Afifi Fear, like all other emotions, is basically information. Information that gives understanding and knowledge (if it’s accepted) to psychological status. And there are five basic fears, thaat are shared, of which all other fears come out from and build upon. Those are, Egodeath, separation, loss of autonomy, mutilation/bodily invasion, and extinction.
Image From The Munich Manual Of Demonic Magic, Fifteenth-Century Grimoire Manuscript
Ego-death, a complete loss of subjectiveidentity. It is when an individual personally experiences a sense of identity or sense of self. This individual still hears, smells, and perceives, but there is no longear a sense of seeing or hearing. It is being extremely aware, but without being loaded by the parts of the personality that make us ‘us’. While ego is a person’s sense of self-esteem or self importance, its death is losing one’s self. Not only this, ego- death is also fear of humiliation, shame, or anything that threatens self-integrity.
SEPARATION Separation, fear of abandonment, and loss of affinity. It is the fear of being separated, whether it is a person, a thing, or something mental.
Loss of Autonomy
Mutilation
Loss of autonomy, fear of being paralyzed, restricted, immobilized, imprisoned, or controlled by circumstances beyond control. Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment1, for instance, the prisoners were harassed and were imprisoned by “guards”. This was a test of conforming, but when looking at the prisoners as an example of what imprisonment can do - less than thirty-six hours into the experiment, Prisoner #8612 began suffering from acute emotional disturbance, disorganized thinking, uncontrollable crying, and rage. Fear can interrupt processes in the brain that regulate emotion, leaving one susceptible to intense emotions and impulsive reactions.
Mutilation, is the fear of losing any bodily parts. The thought of having any part of the body or organs taken or invaded causes fear. Mutilation has been used by many societies with various cultural and religious significances, as a form of physical punishment, especially applied on the principle of an eye for an eye. “The fear of torture and mutilation as a fear tactic did not become a more common practice until the Assyrian Empire was built.” (“Ancient Mesopotamian Warfare”)2. Fear of animals, such as spiders and snakes arise from the fear of mutilation.
1 The Stanford prison experiment was an attempt to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power, focusing on the struggle between prisoners and prison officers.
2 The Assyrians were known for being barbaric when it came to torturing slaves and prisoners.
Extinction The fear of failing or ceasing to exist. It is not just the fear of death, but it is also the fear of being physically here but failing to prove existence, as if one is useless and unrecognizable by people. It is so much like the Arabic saying: “”كن غائب ًا حاضر بد ًال من حاضر غائب.
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Now, when thinking of all the labels that are put on fear; there are many. Fear of heights, fear of leaving home, fear of losing someone, fear of death, fear of insects, reptiles, or any of the plethora of fears that are known, branch out from those five fears mentioned above. Looking at any of the labelled fears, isn’t it obvious that, for example, fear of heights or falling is basically fear of extinction? And couldn’t this be fear of mutilation, as well? The fear of being rejected or ignored, isn’t it the same as fear of separation? Not only separation, but this can also be the death of Ego. Mainly, those five fears, as stated, are related to one another. Fear of heights can be both, fear of extinction or mutilation. At the end of the day, all fears branch out under those five above mentioned fears. The five concepts came from the study of fear, and how scientifically and philosophically each person has a different visualization of it through past experiences since birth up until this very moment. Reading, storytelling, family, and watching are three main things that form the way fear is visualized. For instance, growing up knowing what the devil looks like; two horns, goat feet, bat wings, pitchfork, and bloody red skin, are characteristics of a devil in every culture, even though the structure of the devil is not mentioned in any religion. Still, art historians imagined what a devil looks like and passed it on overtime till it reached our generation and will reach the coming ones. Art historians formed the devil based on, mainly, a history of Gods. Greek and Egyptian 147
Gods who had the same character traits of a devil. An example would be the Greek God Pan, who had 2 goat legs, and was said to be evil and sinful. Even the word ‘Panic’ is derived from his name. Another example would be one of the Ancient Egyptians Gods, Seth, who was known as the God of evil, the desert, the storms, and chaos. He represented everything that threatened harmony in Egypt. Consequently, this picturing of the devil became how almost everyone in all countries and cultures in the world envisions fear. Human species visualize things differently, based on what is seen and experienced. The devil is a childhood obsession. Some, if not all, children are afraid of the dark. First thing they do at home when they try going anywhere close to a dark room, is turning on every single light in the house, because they obsess over the idea of the devil coming out of the darkness. They might think, ‘what if I run to my room without turning on the lights on my way? would this ghost come out?’ A childhood obsession is somehow different from an adult obsession. Meaning that, for a child, obsession can be with a favorite toy, obsessing over a cartoon, or over food. Of course, this does not apply to all children, but it does apply to a big number of them. However, with adults, obsession is more severe. When speaking of obsession with adults, it is generally considered as a disorder. A disorder that can destroy someone not just mentally, but physically, if left untreated. “It is the recurring of persistent thoughts or urges
that are experienced, and that, in worst cases, causes anxiety.” (Pittenger, 2017, p.4) Obsession is a disease that can be easily treated when it is still at ‘obsession’ stage, or almost impossible to get rid of, if left untreated. Obsession can get worse, and become an OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). OCD is a very advanced form of obsession, and is very hard to be treated. While obsession is doing things (and these things have total control of the brain) that are liked, repeatedly, and not being bothered, OCD is doing these same things in a constant way, wishing this habit can be stopped, but it can’t be. It can’t because if one does not do these things and listen to the voice in their head that says ‘do it or something might go wrong’ one would feel uncomfortably annoyed. Whether Obsession or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, they are both a cause of anxiety, which is very wide and leads to many disorders. And even though anxiety leads to many different disorders like anorexia, bulimia, hallucinations and more, these disorders share one common factor, obsession. Going back to the five significant fears, ego-death, mutilation, loss of autonomy, separation, and extinction, mapping them would be very suitable, since there is still a lot to be added. But what is mapping? Mapping is not necessarily used as a geographic map that locates countries, or a GPS that leads Illustration from The Usborne Guide to the Supernatural World , 1979
to a particular place. Maps guide intelligent action, yet they are regularly abstracted and idealized representations. There are biological maps that are used to explain the human genome sequence. Some studies made on mice (as a model for human diseases) cannot be made except by mapping a genetic basis, because that is the only way scientists can distinguish things. There are maps of nature and science, maps that show, guide, and explain to us theories in science such as Newtonian mechanics or evolutionary theory. Sociologist, Randal Collins, “mapped the networks of 3,000 philosophers and mathematicians, a yeoman project that took him on a 25-year journey across the globe, seeking insights into the histories and inner workings of societies and the thinkers who shaped them.” (Taylor & Frances, 2006)). He had a map of the relationships between philosophers in 11th and 12th century China. Not only this, but argument mapping, also has been taught in philosophy curriculums in some universities. It is creating graphics of what your main arguments are and instead of assigning students with texts and readings, they are assigned to map their core arguments being presented, which gives them a task with a goal. Mapping can basically be used to clarify all your information, ideas, what your main concept is, or what your essential investigation revolves around. But how will loss of autonomy, ego-death, extinction, separation, and mutilation be represented on a map? Interviews will be 149
Left Image: Discourse on Geomancy, ca 1685
Right Image: Satan in the 9th Circle of Hell. Illustration 34 of Divine Comedy: Inferno by Paul Gustave Dor
made with people who suffer from those five fears. What did they experience that made them suffer this particular fear? Where did this happen? What do they think of when they start feeling this fear? Do they remember a specific person? A song? A picture? And since ‘fear’ or the idea of the ‘devil’ has been symbolized as a two-horned, goat feet, and a red-blooded skin human figure-devil, then those five fears can be, as well, visualized into five different surreal figures. The final project will be symbolic of the five basic fears in surreal figures that are connected to each fear’s definition and meaning. Five logos will, then, be made out of those symbolisms so they can easily put on the map to guide the viewer and help him decode the map, alongside the key terms. In conclusion, the production will either be five maps, each fear will be mapped in one piece, or all five will be combined and connected together in one large map. In both cases, the piece will be painted. The colors and sizes are still unknown, but if the final was on one map, then it would be on a canvas or a wooden board. The map will include and combine all information gathered from the interviewees, connecting the linked information, or what those people share. It will also include the five surreal-figurative symbolisms of fear [images 7,46-50], which will later be illustrations on the map with the logos showing where each fear was repeated.
References: “Ancient Mesopotamian Warfare.” Ancientmesopotamianwarfare. Sites.psu.edu/ancientmesopotamianwarfare/. Gelder, Tom Van. “Argument Mapping in Introduction to Philosophy.” Tim Van Gelder, 14 Dec. 2006 Cohen, Tom. “Mapping Big Thinkers and Their Ideas.” Philosophy & Culture | Berggruen, 21 Feb. 2017 Albrecht, Karl. “Brain Training.” Karl Albrecht International Casci, Tanita. “Multifactorial Genetics: A Map of Fear.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 1 Jan. 2001 “Maps, Mapping, Modernity: Art and Cartography in the Twentieth Century.” Taylor & Francis, 18 Aug. 2006 MacEachren, Alan M. “Geographical Review.” Geographical Review, vol. 78, no. 4, 1988, pp. 451– 453. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/215102. Pittenger, C., Obsessive-compulsive Disorder: Phenomenology, Pathophysiology, and Treatment, Oxford University Press, 2017 “Stanford Prison Experiment.” Stanfordprisonexperiment, 2015. http://www.prisonexp.org/
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Seduction Lab is the place where instinct overrides desire; where people interact & effect natural reproduction systems with certain communication mechanisms, triggered by various stimulus to their senses. This project examines how senses can override the facets of the logical mind, and how when thinking patterns fail, the innate program which withholds a fixed mechanism called instinct, ariseas. Whether it is a conscious decision or not, instinct is a natural drive that withholds an impulse that Beings act upon immediately, while desire is a want that does not necessarily need to be fulfilled.
Seduction Lab: Reproduction Communication Mechanism Systems
Communication mechanisms are built to create life from the basics, to reproduce in order to keep life evolving. It is a form in which information is exchanged between two or more ends. The persuasive language to feed desires, rooted in instinct, is beyond the limiting capabilities of the logical mind. Sigmund Freud argued for the distinction between instinct and antithesis (Unconscious /conscious), by stating that an instinct is pre-lingual, which can only be accessed by language; language is an idea that represents an instinct (Freud, 1915a). According to Freud, the egoistic mechanism to suppress and forget instinctual impulses is the “ideational presentation” of the instinct,
Menna Diaa Ali
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Mating Drosophlia, Google Images
which shows that the deepest, primitive drives are beyond the ability of representation (Freud, 1915a). Beings use triggers to stimulate and locate their counterparts, then use their species courtship rituals to mate, and for the final post-mating stage life becomes precarious. Fireflies have a unique flicker code to attract mates of the same species. When a male approach, the firefly female captures him for sexual satisfaction and then devours him. Marcel Duchamp’s art piece The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors portrays the four mating stages: the action begins when the bride “bee” flirts by stripping for the nine bachelors (locating mates). Each bachelor tries to win the bride’s affection (courtship ritual), and as the bachelors get excited they fill up with the “illuminating gas,” which then causes the “imaginary waterfall” that shoots into the bride’s realm above (mating) (Kuykendall). The seven out of nine holes that the bachelors need to shoot into to get to the bride are however not within the target therefore the bachelors desire for the bride stays unfulfilled (post-mating behavior). Communication systems are built fixed programs, altered to surroundings, working 152
in a loop. Whether communication is to fulfill desires, dominate, defend, or fulfill instinctual drives, it is always key to complete a reproductive cycle. Instinctual drives are to produce a certain end, without prior foresight of the end results, nor previous education of the performance that leads to this end. In the animal kingdom instinct exists on an enormous scale. A silk worm knows when the right time is to wind its cocoon without any further knowledge of how its done, to form a safe abode for its period of transformation into a butterfly. Philosophers argue that freewill does not exist due to the existence of instinct (Cave, 2016). They believe that choices are dependent of the laws of nature that emerged from past ancestral species. Everything that takes place in the universe is caused and dependent upon what happened in the past. Consequently, what happened in the beginning of the universe is the cause to what happens next, and so the loop goes on, right up to a Beings’ present. The decision taken for the next step will always be caused by what happened before; therefore, the concept negates the idea of freewill. Friedrich Nietzsche refers to instinct as any “non-conscious mental process and self153
created dispositions to act” in which the latter action is a species of the former action related to the instincts found in animals (Hsieh, 1997). Instinct are innate patterns of behavior in animals in which they respond to external stimuli (Hsieh, 1997). Species, such as insects, have linguistic mating systems which are derived by stimulating their senses, such as tactile, tandem running, vibrations, chemicals, auditory, & visual. “There are two classes of instincts: 1) Eros or the sexual instincts, which is compatible with the self-preservative instincts; and 2) Thanatos or the death-instinct, a natural desire to “reestablish a state of things that was disturbed by the emergence of life” (Freud, 1962, 709). Insect communication is “an act or condition of any part of an organism that alters the behavior of another organism” (Vila, 2015). An emitter insect sends a message to other organisms by doing any kind of action according to it species language, such as acoustic signals or by developing a physical trait that informs the receptors to induce a response from the receptors (Vila, 2015). Living Beings are grouped in terms of mating, their characteristics of mate possession, and
mating behavior. Animal mating systems are significantly diverse and influenced by many factors. Factors such as the spatial (space) and temporal (time) distribution of the sexually receptive mate, the availability and distribution of resources, the life history of the female and male, and the sexual selection and parental care (Vila, 2015). Mating is a communication mechanism for reproduction and survival in both insects and human beings. The survival mechanism usually gives them an instinct which controls their actions and reactions to prevent them from dying. Survival instincts can lead all kinds of creatures to drop all secondary needs to fulfill primary needs. A female mantis has the habit of killing and eating their partner during sexual intercourse, sacrificing the male, thus giving the female mantis a distinct reproductive advantage. Scientists studying insect behavior and communication systems refer to the act as “sexual cannibalism.” Moreover, some studies suggest that female mantises who eat their partners head after sexual intercourse gives them the opportunity to produce more eggs (Horowitz, 2017). When the male mantis is devoured the eggs get ninety percent of the males’ amino acid to provide nourishment to the offspring, while when the male is not Google Images
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to have the same result as the same natural system that is innate in living beings by a higher power. The project aims to awaken social consciousness to incite and provoke a conversation of how living Beings operate within systems without questioning its origins, how it works, and if there are any other alternatives? The lab will mobilize biological structures and processes of insects that will collaborate between animals or living organisms as materials and human beings. For ethical issues the living organisms will be extruded in a natural habitat that will only be allowed to be changed and manipulated by human beings without causing any harm to these organisms. The living organisms will then be disposed into another natural habitat with no human control when the exhibition duration ends. sacrificed the eggs get only twenty-five percent (Horowitz, 2017). Reproduction is the single most critical feature that has created the diversity of past and present life forms. Scientists argue that it is evidence of the evolutionary process. Intercourse has a genetic basis that determines reproductive success. Therefore, genetic disposition to reproduction has been established and maintained since the 157
beginning of life. Mating systems reflect the natural selection of mate choice to implement strategies that maximize reproductive success. There are four types of mating systems, monogamy, polygyny, polyandry, and promiscuity. Seduction lab, is a form of Bio-art that provokes a social discussion of how life and evolution is derived from instinct, and if these predisposed systems could be manipulated
Seduction lab explores the mating language that insects go through for reproduction by human beings. It will be a large installation in which people can interact with and explore a natural habitat based on stimulating their senses using the insects’ communication mechanisms. The interaction will be taped as performance art, as each and every person will react to the stimulus given differently. People will be invited and stimulated to interact with
Female Water Strider’s Genital Shield, With Its Inflation Illustrated In Pictures B Through G. Photo: Han Cs, Jablonski Pg, 2009
a machine or machine-like form given specific triggers of stimuli. A disclaimer notice will be provided informing people who walk into the interactive space that they are being recorded by video. These triggers will play on the senses that the insects use as a mating language such as, tactile communication, vibrations and visuals. There are a variety of methods for copulation which result in a set of diverse systems and various outcomes. The lab is an interactive space, and the people, who interact with the natural habitat, are the artists of the space formation.
References: Cave, S. (2016, June 10). There’s No Such Thing as Free Will. Retrieved 2018, from https://www.theatlantic. com/magazine/archive/2016/06/theres-no-such-thingas-free-will/480750/ CLA. (2002, July 17). Instinct. Retrieved December, 2017, from https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/definitions/instinct.html Cultural Norms. (n.d.). Retrieved December, 2017, from http://study.com/academy/lesson/cultural-norms-definition-values-quiz.html Freud S. (1915a). “Instincts and their vicissitudes,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14), ed Strachey J., editor. (London: The Hogarth Press; ), 109–140 Freud, S., & Strachey, J. (1962). The ego and the id. New York: Norton. HOROWITZ, K. (2017, February 18). Why Lady Mantises Eat Their Mates. Retrieved 2018, from http:// mentalfloss.com/article/82506/why-lady-mantises-eattheir-mates Hsieh, D. (1997, March 10). Between Instinct and Habit. Retrieved December, 2017, from http://enlightenment. supersaturated.com/essays/text/dianamertzhsieh/thesis/02.html
Leicester, S. (2017, August 17). DNA, Genes and Chromosomes. Retrieved December, 2017, from https:// www2.le.ac.uk/projects/vgec/highereducation/topics/ dna-genes-chromosomes London, T. O. (2017, December 03). Conspirators of Pleasure. Retrieved December, 2017, from https://www. timeout.com/london/film/conspirators-of-pleasure Simic, R. (n.d.). NLP Practitioner Training by Robert Simic Coaching Institute. Retrieved December, 2017, from http://robertsimiccoachinginstitute.com/nlp-training/nlp-practitioner- %20training/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwg7HPBRDUARIsAMeR_0iW86lXv- wn_9CzyOhG2aNscGsZkp_GAcCif2qTvKuHO82HTjWsMEoaAs0qEALw_wcB Smithsonian. (n.d.). Mating in Insects. Retrieved November, 2017, from https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/mating Vila, I. L. (2015, November 22). How do insects communicate? Retrieved November, 2017, from https:// allyouneedisbiology.wordpress.com/2015/11/22/insect-communication/
http://ento.psu.edu/publications/516Baker1993.pdf http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1724524.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Kuykendall, L. (n.d.). Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass). Retrieved 2018, from https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ art-1010/wwi-dada/dada1/a/duchamp-the-bridestripped-bare-by-her-bachelors-even 158
The Banyan Tree Mervat Allam The project comprises a series of painting works portraying an assemblage of different incongruous and dramatic forms of industrial parts and machines juxtaposed with elements of human organs, plants, and cells. In the works, inanimate forms connect and morph into organic animate parts. The result is a complex hybrid structure, possessing a character and a life of its own, demonstrating how our world is entangled and interconnected. The work is based on computer-scanned reproductions of unrelated images. Created in bold and vibrant colours, and inspired by the digital media work of contemporary artists, such as Jeff Koons, these collagelike paintings resemble the visual language of advertising and marketing and are thus representative of our modern culture. Conceptually, the work is based on the structure of the banyan tree (Ficus 159
Benghalensis), that is characterized by aerial prop roots that mature into thick, woody trunks, which can become indistinguishable from the primary trunk with age. Old trees can spread laterally by using these prop roots to grow over a wide area. In some species, the prop roots develop over a considerable area that resembles a grove of trees, with every trunk connected directly or indirectly to the primary trunk.1 Just like the banyan tree, everything in our universe is connected. This interconnectedness, is captured at the sub-atomic level, by quantum physics that sees the world as particles that are entangled and connected; yet they are separated in space and time. Space is just the construct that gives the illusion of separate objects. The human body is comprised of cells, molecules, atoms, subatomic particles and pure energy. The whole universe is made up of energy where at this level everything is vibrating. Hence everything is connected through a sea of universal consciousness where the intangible world affects the tangible world and the spiritual world affects the physical world.2 The world views and value systems that lie at 1 Shanahan, Mike. “The Majesty and Mystery of India’s Sacred Banyan Trees”, Newsweek, September 23,2016. https://underthebanyan.wordpress.com/2016/09/23/the-majesty-and-mystery-of-indias-sacred-banyan-trees/ 2 One Mind- One Energy The Power is Within, https://www. one-mind-one-energy.com
the basis of our culture, and our understanding and perception of nature and existence, have always shaped human experience and inspired art. The integration of organic and mechanical structural forms in The Banyan Tree project is inspired by looking back to these earlier world views. Before the 1500s in Europe, as well as in most other civilizations, we find that the universe was perceived as an organic being. People lived in small, cohesive communities and experienced nature in terms of organic relationships, characterized by the interdependence of spiritual and material phenomena, subordinating individual needs to those of the community. Aristotle and the Church were the two authorities on which this scientific framework and organic world view rested on and was unquestioned throughout the middle ages.3 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the medieval outlook of the earth as nurturing mother was radically transformed. As the Scientific Revolution proceeded, the organic view of nature disappeared completely and was replaced by the notion of the world as a machine. The world-machine became the dominant metaphor of the modern era. This development was brought about by revolutionary changes in physics and astronomy, resulting in the achievements of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, culminating 3 Capra, Fritjof. The Turning Point. The Newtonian World Machine, http://www.juwing.sp.ru/Capra/Cpt2.htm
in what historians call the Age of the Scientific Revolution. The science of the seventeenth century was based on a new method of inquiry which involved the mathematical description of nature and the analytic method of reasoning. This shift, which was significantly re-orientated the development of Western civilization, was initiated and completed by two towering figures of the seventeenth century, Descartes and Newton. Descartes believed that the key to the universe was its mathematical structure. During that time the material universe was merely a machine. There was no purpose, life, or spirituality in matter. Nature worked according to mechanical laws, and everything in the material world could be explained in terms of the arrangement and movement of its parts. Descartes extended his mechanistic view of matter, to living organisms. Plants and animals were also considered simply machines, he was strongly influenced by the lifelike toy machinery of the baroque 17th century that delighted people with the magic of its seemingly spontaneous movements. Like most of his contemporaries, Descartes was fascinated by these automata and even constructed a few of them himself. Inevitably, he compared their functioning to that of living organisms: ‘We see clocks, artificial fountains, mills and other similar machines which, though merely man-made, have nonetheless the power to move by themselves in several different ways ... I do not recognize any difference between 163
the machines made by craftsmen and the various bodies that nature alone composes” (Descartes). The man who realized the Cartesian dream and completed the Scientific Revolution was Isaac Newton. The Newtonian universe was, indeed, one huge mechanical system, operating according to exact mathematical laws. In the Newtonian view, God initially created the material particles, the forces between them, and the fundamental laws of motion. In this way the whole universe was set in motion, and it has continued to run ever since, like a machine, governed by immutable laws.4 In today’s highly industrialised technologically advanced societies; human and machine are becoming inseparable. The machine has acquired a high priority in the modern era becoming an indispensable instrument in the life of man. Many artists have been concerned and inspired by the mechanical world since the turn of the last century. In the early 1900s, Marcel Duchamp, the father of conceptual art, incorporated machines as a method of expression and representation in his work. Evident in the Great Glass or the Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, where the bride situated in an aerial environment in the upper half of the large glass possess a partially mechanized form. The lower panel of the Large Glass contains the Bachelor Apparatus. 4 Capra, Fritjof. The Turning Point. The Newtonian World Machine, http://www.juwing.sp.ru/Capra/Cpt2.htm 164
This is a visibly mechanical world, and one that seems contained by circular movement and frustration. It is the subject of intensive exploration of mechanical power and motion. Francis Picabia, of the Dada movement, shared this fascination with the idea of industrial objects and machines. His goal was to invent “mechanical symbolism” connecting technology and progress to human lives. His attraction to machines would also shape his early Dada work, particularly his Mechanomorphs. These images of invented machines and machine parts that were intended as parodies of portraiture, suggest analogies between machines and the human form. For Picabia, humans were nothing but machines, ruled not by their rational minds, but by a range of compulsive hungers: “the machine has become more than a mere adjunct of life. It is really a part of human life... perhaps the very soul...I have enlisted the machinery of the modern world, and introduced it into my studio.” (Francis Picabia).5 Iranian born contemporary artist Nader Ahriman’s paintings also consists of illconceived machines floating in a dream like world, that seem equally reminiscent of Fernand leger’s Ballet Mecanique. The film demonstrates his concern shared with many 5 Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors. Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors. Available from: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-picabia-francis.htm [Accessed 19 Feb 2018] 165
artists of the 1920s with the mechanical world.6
References:
Throughout the ages, our perception of our environment has profoundly shaped the ways in which we have chosen to express ourselves. The goals of science from the time of the ancients has been understanding the natural order and living in harmony with it. With the scientific revolution this attitude changed to the complete opposite. The goal of science became seeking knowledge that can be used to dominate, predict and control nature. The Cartesian conception of the world as a machine became fully abandoned with the discovery of evolution in biology. The universe had to be pictured as an evolving and ever-changing system in which complex structures developed from simpler forms.
Shanahan, Mike. The Majesty and Mystery of India’s Sacred banyan trees, Newsweek, September 23,2016. https://underthebanyan.wordpress.com/2016/09/23/ the-majesty-and-mystery-of-indias-sacred-banyantrees/
The Banyan Tree rejects a world view that explains the universe through science alone. The spiritual by itself is equally incapable of satisfying our need to understand. Only by combining both elements, the scientific and mechanical together with the naturalistic and spiritual, can we begin to make sense of our existence and peel away the layers of darkness. Looking through this tolerant fisheye lens, we finally begin to appreciate the true beauty of our world.
Capra, Fritjof. The Turning Point. The Newtonian World Machine, http://www.juwing.sp.ru/Capra/Cpt2.htm One Mind- One Energy The Power is Within, https:// www.one-mind-one-energy.com Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors. Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors. Available from: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-picabia-francis.htm [Accessed 19 Feb 2018] Strauss, Dorothea. Nader Ahriman Paintings 19942003. Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2003.
6 Strauss, Dorothea. Nader Ahriman Paintings 1994-2003. Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2003. 166
Order of the Tumor Sara Ahmed El Barkouki
tumour tju/mə/ noun 1. A mutation in the existing attributes of space, expanding in a manner so as to swell. It can be ever expanding, or it can be a stagnant swelling perceived as a disruption. 2. It usually feels like a slippery, smooth, hard marble that moves freely within the space it contains. This contrast between texture and strength is what forms the contradiction of whether it is an addition or a negation to space.
The tumor is an entity that occupies space. This occupation occurs through a sequential manner that begins with a mutation of a cell to a four-dimensional space; time being the fourth dimension essential for its expansion, growing exponentially with every moment. It is created in numerous shapes and forms that are organic and irregular which is a result of an architectural deformation in the natural/whole space. The origin and purpose of the tumor formation is unknown; always causing discomfort due to its intrusive nature within the body. “In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order” (Bohm 1980, p. xv). According to David Bohm, who is considered to be one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the twentieth century- these ordinary notions appear in what he calls the “explicate” or “unfolded” order, which is a special and distinguished form contained within Geometric organica, Tom Beddard, 2010
the general totality of all implicate orders. The arrangement of the tumor is one of a multilayered complexity; characterized with both implicate order and wholeness. Furthermore, the same can be said about the architectural system of the tumor itself; it is a structure formed in an ambiguity of space and time. The Implicate order of a tumor is manifested in its ordered process of exponential growth where every second matters. Upon seeing the tumor, it is initially viewed as a disruption of space; but within a precise exponent of timely experience, the shift in perspective starts taking place, where the “disruption” turns into a feeling that the tumor and the space it had once invaded are now in unison. A tumor that occupies a space and has its own place within it; subsequently forms a space within itself that gives the feeling of familiarity once understood and intricately observed and experienced. This art project aims to capture an experience in which the viewer can fully grasp this whole theory in an architectural space that leads the viewer to the philosophical dimensions of the tumor itself. The tumor is a biological entity and thus highly effectual in relation to the human being. The paradox lies in converting that humanistic aspect to an analytical, structural
and a philosophical experience through an architectural language out of the formal aspects of space and form. Space and form, in this manner, are competitive elements that strive to overcome each other but end up completing one another. Upon experiencing the installation, one seems to turn from merely witnessing, to searching for some sort of order, to accepting the chaotic nature of the tumor as part of the whole. He or she is congested by the feeling of intimacy and belonging and fully digests this mystical tumor of a space. The tumor is a unquantifiable space rather than an object, it internalizes the foundational conditions of the space-time matrix. The space of the tumor within the body through a sonar - an imaging test that uses high-frequency sound waves to create pictures of internal organs (RSNA) - is a hollow visual. However, in a mammogram - the process of using lowenergy X-rays to examine the human breast for diagnosis and screening - it is a lumpy fibrous visual. Both contradictory visuals represent the space of the tumor in different ways and through varying mediums. Through this art project I aim to represent the tumor as an architectural experience of both hollow and solid forms that communicates the feeling of absence and presence. The contrast between 168
solid and void reveals a direct relationship between the mind, which is always present, and the soul which to some, is in a fleeting process of absence and presence. Suggestively, it is the bombardment of reality (solid) that strikes the deepest and most forgotten point within the soul (void). Wholeness is not falsified with the absence of the tumor; however when absent, it becomes a conceptual subtraction of the thing itself, evidencing its existence by the space it leaves behind. Space could be most efficiently bound by an enclosing geometry like bubbles and foams which form an interesting geometry of tetrahedral nodes with elements combining at angles of approximately 120 degrees. Turning the space of a tumor into complex polygons; this represents the complexity of the exponential growth pattern of a tumor. The treatment of this ingrown element of space can sometimes become infectious. Removing the structure of the tumor is removing a significant part of the space it occupies. This is because the space has slowly morphed to becoming the tumor and the removal of it through time will cause disruption in the reality that it has become, visually and experientially. A minority of fibroadenomas or micro-elements of 169
the structure will disappear without treatment or “destruction” (Kovatcheva); but generally, most increase in size or remain unchanged. Some spaces of the tumor get bigger, while others stay the same, get smaller or even disappear over time. The tumor can be surgically removed however the pre-existing structure of the body itself will never be the same. The architecture of a tumor is manifested in spatial irregularity, its organic nature and the unidentified time factor of its growth. The tumor is always an unexpected form; sequentially, the unanimous nature of the tumor is what makes this structure something beyond time and space. The void it leaves behind camouflages itself within the original space resulting in a mark, scar, imprint. The tumor can also be understood as a representation of self in the conceptual realization of the inner struggle regarding an invasion by a foreign body, often resulting in a self-discomfort. Most philosophical definitions of self as per Descartes, Locke, Hume, and William James—are expressed in the first person implying more subjectivity. “A third person definition does not refer to specific mental qualia but instead strives for objectivity and operationalism” (Revolvy, LLC).
Alternatively, the self can be understood as the conduct and discourse of that individual. Therefore, the intentions and identity of any one individual can be inferred from that which emanates from ‘who’ that individual is through their action and speech (Arendt, 2012). There are four sections to the soul according to Aristotle, these include: the scientific, the rational, the calculative and the irrational. The scientific and calculative are those seemingly common to the tumor, whilst the rational is the decisive side to the soul, the irrational section determines its needs that may or may not contradict rationality. The soul can be associated with a tumor in that it is a being of life, a structure composed of sections within sections; those striving to work naturally and those taking over, which are the irrational parts that seem to take over most of the time. The self is a controversial term; its existence is questionable. Thomas Metzinger, a contemporary German philosopher, contends there is no such thing as the “self.” Rather, the self is a kind of transparent informationprocessing system. “You don’t see it,” he writes “but you see with it” (Metzinger, 2006). This however, does not contradict how Psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott has explained the Breast Lump, MRI Scan, https://bit.ly/2tyzkLL
need for the self so as to process information. He claims that our souls are comprised of the true self (also known as real self, authentic self, original self and vulnerable self) and false self (also known as fake self, ideal self, perfect self, superficial self and pseudo self). These are psychological terms explaining the narcissistic nature of human kind. Consequently, an explanation to the feeling of being alive might be manifested in the true self that is often unrecognized with the disruption of the false self. The false side of the soul is that of aspirations to perfect oneself rather than to explore inner identity. This false soul is somewhat defensive, forcing a body to act in a certain manner that causes one to feel dead and empty under the camouflage of appearing real. The structural manifestation in the tumor explains that of the true self, finally taking over and consuming the false self in order to take on its natural form without feeling like a minority or abnormality. The difference between the tumor and the self is that the tumor is tangible, it is a biological reality that cannot be denied. However, the philiosophical implications behind the structure of the tumor is that of similarity to the self in that it is a construct of ones own unique consciousness. In this sense, the tumor
represents revolutionary ideologies that finally seep through the obstructions of life. People usually have an internalized form of an ideal human being within called the “self guide”. One usually seeks to reduce the gap between oneself and his or her self guide in a process called self-discrepancy (Yardley,1987) The issue is that this gap may be reduced only to a certain extent such that the gap can be of a negligible size but the two will never be the same. This is due to the fact that perfection is a subjective term and the difference will never cease to exist. The small difference that remains is the individuality of a being that he strives to erase. In contrast, the tumor will expand or diminish based on its own formation, no self guide or gap to be thought of. In fact, the tumor expands this gap such that it is very clear and its individuality stands out. The individuality that stands out doesn’t necessarily mean to make the person experiencing the artwork feel isolated even if that is the case in the beginning; in fact, this mutation gives the perciever an inner realization of his own self that has been overcome by the process of trying to become someone else. The space will mutate so as to embrace the lost souls experiencing the structure.
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The proposed art project will take the form of an interactive installation that communicates the architectural behaviour of a tumor and the philosophy behind it as a structure that interacts with space and the viewers rather than appear as a disruption or an imposed structure. The viewer will experience a four dimensional aspect to the tumor through being able to interact with and walk through the space, on top or even underneath the structure so as to gradually ( in an ordered and timely manner) morph into the space that was once misconcieved and start understanding that demolishing the structure would be a disruption to the soul rather than it’s cure. The installation space will combine solids and voids to create sculptural form that defies universal architecture ideologies. The interactive aspect of the work will be immersive, such that a viewer becomes part of the installation itself; they become a part of the whole in numerous small systems within the larger system or space filling the void and excavating the solidity of space. The materials to create this artwork will be very fibrous and delicate yet have a quality that holds itself by the solidarity of it internalized ordered components. The scale of the installation space must be very large and expansive to accommodate several viewers at one time, to unify and embrace the individuals’ experience of the work. 171
References: Arendt, Hannah, and Margaret Canovan. The Human Condition. University of Chicago Press, 2012. “Antony Gormley.” Antony Gormley. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2017. Bohm, David (1980), Wholeness and the Implicate Order, London: Routledge, ISBN 0-7100-0971-2 Metzinger, Thomas. Being No One: the Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. The MIT Press, 2006. “(Routledge Classics) David Bohm, F. David Peat-Complete Series Bundle RC_ Science, Order and Creativity (Routledge Classics)-Routledge (2010).pdf.” Scribd. Scribd, n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2017. “RATIONAL & IRRATIONAL PARTS OF THE SOUL.” UnKantrolable, 17 Nov. 2016, unkantrolablerpe.wordpress. com/2016/11/17/rational-irrational-parts-of-the-soul/. Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and American College of Radiology (ACR). “Ultrasound - Pelvis.” Pelvic Ultrasound, www.radiologyinfo.org/en/ info.cfm?pg=pelvus. Kovatcheva, Roussanka, et al. Journal of Therapeutic Ultrasound, BioMed Central, 2017, www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5353785/. Revolvy, LLC. “Philosophy of Self.” Revolvy, www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Philosophy%2Bof%2Bself. Yardley, Krysia, and Terry Honess. Self and Identity--Psychosocial Perspectives. Wiley, 1987
Left Image: Reproduced illustrations from The Architecture of Molecules, by Linus Pauling
Right Image: Unknown, Mike Tanis
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Desiring Machines Solyma Darwish This paper is about post-human activity. However to be able to clearly identify what post-human activity is, one must explain anthropocentric behavior. According to Gale Encyclopedia of Science anthropocentric behavior is: “A centrism is a worldview or way of looking at things that places some particular value or group at the center. Anthropocentrism is that worldview that considers humans to be the most important thing in the Universe, or at least on the planet Earth.” This anthropocentric behavior that leads to affecting human activity, in return has a very negative effect on the future of the world we live in. This is what we call post-human activity. So basically this posthuman activity criticizes our anthropocentric behavior that would lead to future problems, that includes ecological issues and universal misrepresentations. Anthropocentric behavior emerged due to our constant need and desire. As the mechanism
of our bodies leads to desire, we tend to turn the world and alter it in order to satisfy those needs. This is what the philosopher Deleuze had described in his book Anti Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia: “It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in fits and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the id. Everywhere it is machines— real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections. An organ-machine is plugged into an energysource-machine: the one produces a flow that the other interrupts. The breast is a machine that produces milk, and the mouth I machine coupled to it. The mouth of the anorexic wavers between several functions: its possessor is uncertain as to 174
whether it is an eating-machine, an anal machine, a talking-machine, or a breathing machine (asthma attacks). Hence we are all handymen: each with his little machines. ” The idea of us becoming desiring machines will lead to a post-human activity that is directly correlated to technological advancements in human societies. If machine learning and artificial intelligence, surpasses human intelligence; this would have a devastating effect on the human species.
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Left Image: Medical-hypnosis
the innate desire of human behavior, they refer to this as the Oedipal Triangle and how desire is formed in childhood through the relationship between a child-mother-father. In this section of the book, they explore psychoanalysis, which consists the destruction of desire – where the conscious resembles a factory and the body itself as an assemblage of those machines that are producing the desire. Those desire machines produce the biological and chemicals desires of the bodies.
The desiring machines is represented in the popular culture dominates contemporary society, and this takes part in nourishing the industry of post-human anxiety. A big part of popular culture is the movies, computer games and science fiction literature, not to mention the effect of Hollywood, which leads to the construction of the social imaginary. These materialistic interests we tend to portray are the materialistic interests which Guattari and Deleuze’s examine in their book Anti Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia when they talked about “The Desiring-Machines”1 which they have analyzed in a way that explores the notion of desire in relation to the idea of Oedipus2 and
In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guitarri discuss and examine the power of capitalism in different products that lead to one. The multiplication of the quantitative is a form of variations of the same thing, which is the trick of advanced capitalism. Also the connection of the notion of sameness to hyper-individualism3, for example when people personalize their Facebook accounts or their phone’s background thinking they are being different. Generally giving this personal touch to a mass produced element is negated, where in reality all users of those mass produced elements are in reality caught in this “hyper individualistic consumption”4. For Deleuze and Guitarri those are all incredible tricks that are taking part in globalizing the world and gaining control over human brains, where human beings are subjected to borders, security and controls. This ideology of being immobile while being under control is also one of the main issues in
1 Deleuze & Guattari, Anti Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (2017). 2 The myth of Oedipus is an ancient Greek story.
3 Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: Continuum, 2004. Print. 4 Ibid. 176
the post-humanist world. As mentioned the idea of us becoming desiring machines leading to the creation of a posthuman world, will have an effect regarding the economy, which has become reliant on technology, biotechnology, health sciences and even neuroscience. Humans are basically controlled, even the genetic codes are being controlled for example the biogenetic data banks, sperm donor banks, DNA tests these hold information not just about individuals but rather populations. Human beings are taking part in those activities not thinking that life is about all of those resources. Forgetting that this life is not just built on humans, it is also the life 177
of all the other species such as: plants, insects, animals, bacteria or even seeds. So this anthropocentric behavior tends to destruct these other life forms. This also destroys the functions of those species by the robotic industry, as cloning their functionalities also takes place such as the sonar and radars of the dolphins and using drones that self-control. Capitalists are profit oriented, aimed at mining this living data with the goal of capital; which Rosi Braidotti states is “the greedy post anthropocentrism of opportunistic advanced capitalism, where the capital is all that lives.”5 Braidotti goes on to explain that such capitalist interests won’t stop except when everyone becomes consumed, which is inhuman. The Post-human condition needs to start having an understanding in relation with what is around as it is embedded in the world. However to do so the opportunistic self needs to be resisted, which people are embracing more than ever lately. Adaptations to sustainable behaviors needs to be acquired and boundaries need to be maintained in order 5 Prof. Rosi Braidotti - Keynote Lecture - Posthumanism and Society Conference
to have sustainable communities.
religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism and Taoism.
Post-humanism relates to the concept of incarnation; in my point of view as abstract representations of the whole concept of incarnation was the starting topic of this research. Incarnation is a person who embodies in the flesh, in a form of spirit or quality. It is also related to conception, which is the immaterial rebirth of Jesus who is a divine form according to the Christian faith. According to Buddhism, that may seem to deny the idea of incarnation but believes in demi gods; there are Avatars which are the complete opposite of reincarnation as they present the mythical perfection, whereas reincarnation happens in the flesh and represents the result of imperfection. While in Islam and Judaism it is completely rejected according to their holy books they only believe in the power of one divine god. Reincarnation and incarnation are a central concept of Buddhist thought, practice and tradition. Technically there are no gods in the Buddhist tradition and therefore no demi gods also.
Kurt Gödel, a modern philosopher has stated that this theory is based on that lives must appear in the future universe, as humans do not realize their full potential on earth. Its origin “Obscura” is based in Indian philosophical terms, while in astrology it is known as “Karma” and finally known in the scientific world as past lives, near death experiences; there is also Déjà-Vu, precognition, older than age reflection, unexplained phobias, empathy, recurring dreams, out of place memories and intuition.7
To fully understand incarnation, one must also consider reincarnation, which is a philosophical concept that a living being starts a new life in a different physical body or a form after a biological death. Some may relate it to the cyclic existence, which in Buddhism and Hinduism known as “palingenesis”6. Reincarnation is a long-standing mythological and religious tradition of ancient eastern 6 According to the oxford dictionary Body Machine, Fernando Vicente
Reincarnation plays a big role in the avatar world which is a released soul in a bodily form on earth8; it could also be represented in video games. Avatars also represents the concept of double mirror as well as concepts in neurosciences and ecology9. There is also the black avatar, which has been explored through scene analysis. However avatar’s physical medium represents the post-biological revolution, as it is driven from a biological paradigm that is based on technology. Mimetics, which is the study of information based on the analogy of Darwinian evolution, was outlined in a book written in the 1980s by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins; which is mistakenly considered as science, but is rather pseudo-science that has no scientific credibility. This subject was a topic of interest of several movies such as “Flatliners” that portrays near death experiences; but also “Bewitched”, “Over her dead body” and even “Just like heaven”. The concepts of these movies show the thin line between the idea of desire and human exploration that had led to where we are today. Buddhist theory has the three marks of existence: impermanence and suffering. In addition, to the idea of me that is just a series of thoughts, as Buddha only believed in the doctrine of rebirth through energy and transforming of life. He represented it more under the form of Karma 7 Mark Balaguer, Kurt Gödel. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. 8 Wilhelm, Maria; Mathison, Dirk (2009). Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora. 9 Which is the non-human world 178
that is the concept of “action and reaction” and when it reaches your lifetime that is when rebirth occurs. Reincarnation from a certain point of view is an abstract representation of post-humanism as reincarnation states that we as humans continue to live in another form while the post-human is how our behavior would lead to the change of this form. The idea of this link has lead to the shift in the research process, as I am interested in the unconventional use of products that occur in a post-humanist society such as biotechnology, preservation of material; the life span of products, its after life and the reuse of materials in different contexts. The internet and most importantly social media
has a great role in this project, so an Instagram account called “Ecce – Homo”10 based on the theory of ugliness suggested by Karl Rosenkranz. This theory is really interesting and correlated with the topic as it negotiates the notion of beauty without referring to any negative terms such as materiality. Finally, the production will be an installation of avant-garde pieces created from unconventional materials. Their form will be inspired by Deleuze’s concept of desiring machines. To portray the element of posthuman activity I will use artificial limbs, old golden teeth and artificial nails in addition to other experimental materials.
The project will take the form of an installation that is inspired by the artist Vanessa Beecroft and the presentation form applied in museums, where each piece is installed in a plastic box and exhibited separately, portraying its importance and rarity. As the element of museum practice is in direct opposition to globalization, in the sense that museums try to preserve cultural and historical artefacts while globalization is all about fast interconnectivity and transactions; I want to work on the element of contradiction and present a fast moving element in a context of preservation. I will also consider the work of Mona Hatoum and her use of unconventional organic materials to create the central elements/objects of the project.
10 which is a book by Frederick Nietzsche
References: “Anthropocentrism.” The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. . Encyclopedia.com. 1 Feb. 2018 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. Braidotti, R. (2017). the Posthuman by Rosi Braidotti. [online] Available at: https://sites.google.com/site/ gonerohanadz/hhnaotmteuspnvqebtphfouwl-72604
lavachequilit.typepad.com/files/deleuze-guattari---theanti-oedipus.pdf (2017). Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: Continuum, 2004. Print.
Cambridge texts in history of philosophy. (2017). Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra. [online] Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1AH8M1dr2rzLTV2YVVWRk82MFE/view
“Incarnation.” Bibliography – Philpapers, philpapers.org/ browse/incarnation. “Jesus Christ, Incarnaion and doctrine of Logos.” Jesus Christ, Incarnation and doctrine of Logos. Inters. Org, inters.orf/jesus-christ-logos.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari, CAPITALISM AND SCHIZOPHRENIA: Anti epideus. Available at: http://
M. Netolicky, D. (2017). Cyborgs, desiring-machines, bodies without organs, and Westworld: Interrogating
academic writing and scholarly identity. [online] KOME. Available at: http://komejournal.com/files/KOME_DN.pdf [Accessed 21 Dec. 2017]. Mark Balaguer, Kurt Gödel. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Published:January 24, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/biography/KurtGodel. February 27, 2018 Prof. Rosi Braidotti - Keynote Lecture - Posthumanism and Society Conference, New York 9 May 2015 Wilhelm, Maria; Mathison, Dirk (2009). Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora. It Books. ISBN 0-06-189675-6.
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© The American University in Cairo, Department of the Arts | Visual Cultures Program | Visual Arts Major Published in conjunction with ”Pulling Out The Golden Teeth ” Senior Student Exhibition, May 2018 Curated and supervised by Shady Elnoshokaty Visual Art Program Director: Duncan Macdonald Publication Editor: Suzi Elhafez Introduction Translation: Youssef Ragheb Publication Design: Noor Ibrahim Photography by: AbdelRahman Mohamed
The Visual Arts major provides students with an opportunity to develop their independent vision and creative practice as artists in an educational environment emphasizing conceptual research and expression across media. The curriculum balances studio-based coursework with historical and theoretical. Students intending to major in Visual Arts begin with foundations classes in visual research and analysis and then progress to intermediate studio courses in specific media and techniques (drawing, painting, sculpture and installation, photography, time-based media, alternative and new media practices, experimental animation, and others). All majors also complete a four-semester sequence of studio courses (Art Studio I, II, III, and IV) designed to foster independent work at an advanced level, followed by a year-long Senior project in the final year, which culminates in a public exhibition at the annual degree show in the Sharjah Art Gallery. www.aucegypt.edu/huss/arts/visualcultures/
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