M a t t h e w D a l l m a n

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Wednesday, January 21, 2004

AREAS OF INQUIRY OF INTEGRAL ART: In a recent ICHI-ART blog entry, where I occassionally moonlight, I wrote a piece that talks about the four quadrants and how to explore each in the contexts of art. Those contexts are integrally-informed artistry, integral avant-garde artifacts, and integral art interpretation. Here is what I wrote:

"There are three or four major fields of inquiry that an artists can explore within an IOS (integral operating system) for artists. These major fields of inquiry are essentially methodologies, common and well-understood within all fields of art. Each comprise an orientation that one can use to explore, reflect, create injunctions, and in general learn about art-making. This may all sound heady or theoretical, but in practice this is what artists do everyday in making art. As with all of integral theory, we can be more aware of what we are doing, so as to allow for greater focus, consciousness, evolution, presence, energy, life, vitality, and enthusiasm for our art-making. We can become more prone to altered state artistic accidents, that can transmit altered states and radical energy bodies to viewers, audience members, and anyone participating in the wondrous ongoing transcendance act that is art!

"Basically put, the four areas of inquiry are phenomenological, or introspective, inquiry (upper left quadrant), sensory empirical, or behavioral, inquiry (upper right quadrant), systems theory, or functional fit, inquiry (lower right quadrant), and hermenutical, or interpretive, inquiry (lower left quadrant). Conscious of the general nature of each form of inquiry, the artist can develop the skillful means of being able to explore each type of inquiry, and therefore each general quadrant of art-making, throughout the course of one's practice. In terms of being an integrally-informed artist, a pursuit that cultivates integral consciousness, these are general inquiries that an artist can explore. To explore any kind of inquiry, the artist creates injunctions (or exercises, games, activities, or exemplars) to generate information. This information is nothing other than various states of consciousness as well as various energetic bodies. The artist can be reflective and aware of all of this, and over time, can develop stable and permanent access to higher stages of development.

"An artist can also create art -- avant-garde art -- that transmits meaning, energy, and states of consciousness that reflect each of these inquiries. The choreography and presentation of dance, for example, can focus an audience's attention on phenomenology, or in layman's terms, inner perceptions of reality. Audience attention can be focused on sensory empiricism, or the movements and behavior of humans. Attention can be focused on systems theory, which means the ways in which humans, things, and objects of any kind fit together and interact objectively. Finally, the dance piece can transmit energy that focuses the audience on the various ways that humans interpret reality, along subjective dimensions, and this comprises hermenutic energy. All of this can be depicted in the various choices that an artist makes as he or she crafts avant-garde artifacts.

"Just as important as the first two areas (integrally informed artistry, and integral avant-garde artifacts) is the area of integral art and literary theory. This can simply be known as Integral Art Interpretation. So it follows that as people interpret art (critics, academics, and general audience people) these four areas of inquiry (and there can be more) can guide the interpreter into crafting a critical response to art that takes as much into account. Simply run through each of the inquiries and dig up as much information as one can. A 1st-person phenomenological account of a dance piece -- for example the perspective of the choreographer, in terms of his or her intentions, aesthetic sense, personal history, etc -- sometimes cannot be gained, especially if the choreographer has passed on and left no relevant written or audio material that discusses this. But an integral interpretation at the very least acknowledges the potential existance of a whole slew of information, according in part to the four types of inquiry, and is simply more comprehensive than merely looking at artistic intention, the empirical artifact, or the viewer responses alone."
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matthew@matthewdallman.com

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