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2 Comments:
By Aesthetica |
6/26/2006 2:59 AM Something that has been going around in my head Mathew, any thoughts
1) Do you think it is possible to have 'Intergal without the hierarchy' as a viable model
2) Would it be possible to create an artist friendly version of AQAL to make AQAL lucid to those of us i.e me who finds it an enourmous challenge to understand complex models unless I can see its application to art practise. I read this last night .
"....In looking at whether a work of art is "integral", or not, there are many aspects that must be considered. First, a painting, a musical piece, whatever, is an inanimate object, an "it." Though a painting may "have a subject", it is an "object," and has no quadrants of its own. It can, however, be looked at from the four perspectives of the quadrants, or what is known as a "quadrivium (whether a particular piece of art has "life" is entirely another philosophical question).
A quadrant is a subject's perspective; a quadrivium is the perspective the object is being looked at from.
Neither can an "it," in this case a work of art, have interior or exterior realms. Again, it's an object, and an object can only have interiors that first the artist, and then the viewer, impose upon it.
Considering whether a work of art is integral, or not, seems to me has to do with the artist's intentions. Even if an artist doesn't have a working knowledge of the integral approach, if that artist intentionally includes the four quadrants in the production of that work, then I would contend it is integral. If any of the quadrants are missing during that process, it would then be partial, or not integral.
What does it mean to include include the four quadrants in the production of a work of art, or any kind of work?
Because there's an artist and a viewer, there's automatically a lower left quadrant of community:" we have a shared experience of looking at the same work. The lower right quadrant is the system, or technique, of producing the piece. The upper right quadrant could be the subject of the work. Almost all works of art have these in common to a degree..."
If I were to put say Guernica in my mental frame am I left with the bottom line- it’s an object, pigment on canvas- and at most all I can do is interpret it in accordance with my AQALic eye?
I have also had thoughts about an AQALic practise but that seemed so formulaic, painting by numbers, illustrating theory, then I am left with what- ' my green phase' 'my blue phase' and here’s the series where I was being deeply yellow’? Something in my heart cringes when I think of doing that it’s just seems so unartistic and what about aesthetics?
Moan over.
Love,love. Aesthetica.
P.s I am listening to Paglia on any thing audio I can find.
By MD |
6/26/2006 3:57 PM Happy that you are listening to Paglia! Find the BookTV video of her...also a good way to understand her eruditious perspective, so crucial to the tradition of the humanities, to which "integral" in truth belongs.
My responses:
1) You'll have to expound upon more of what you mean by "integral without heirarchy" approach. I don't get enough about what you mean to really comment.
2) If by "AQAL" you mean Wilber's theory, then my answer is that I'm not sure Wilber's theory is relevant to working artists any more than peripherally. My work expounds upon the thinkers I believe to be relevant to working artists. Wilber is not among the first group. See the POLYSEMY Bookshelf, which I curate, for a good list. At least half of the work comes in remembering that to talk about art interpretation is a separate matter altogether than to talk about creative artistry.
As far as "quadrant" vs "quadrivium", a couple words. First, i was part of I-I when this started to be tossed around. To see it see the light of day surprises me, because it is a distinction without a real difference. Thus it is useless to make the quadrants/quadrivium distinction. I find "quadrivium" to be a band-aid to the real sore: that Wilber famous Four Quadrants diagram is context-free, and thus also ought be discarded.
The more general version of what I call "the concept of the quadrants" is far better. My intro essay on integral art discusses this. The basic concept of the quadrants is a lens. Through it, you can look at a person or a thing. Even a place. You just change the terms of each quadrant, keeping the essential relationships of subjective/objective/interobjective/intersubjective in place. Wilber's entire notion that people "possess" quadrants is silly on its face. We possess nothing of the sort; it is a concept we can use to understand humans from its perspective, nothing more nothing less.
So I say that the passage you cite, so typical of a Wilberian analysis, is basically useless. This is not a personal condemnation or anything. I happen to know that Mr Stamper is a genuinely nice fellow. Even nice folks can come under the spell of the "distinctions without differences" trance of Wilberian thought.
For more on my views of integral artist practice, see my paper The Artist's Breath.
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