Love and Death

We experience death as loss. We can't feel loss individually, only socially as a recognition of something missing. When we die, we will feel nothing ourselves. So feeling loss is an integral part of our life, it can't exist without it and decay itself is a fundamental part of existence.

Love is attachment and death is disattachment, which is only noticed relative to the prior attachment, so experience is a constant flow of change from states of attachment and states of disattachment, and it is these changes of state that define existence. This can even occur at atomic levels, the bubbles of the universe, a flow of attachment and disattachment.

To be totally disattached, to be invisible and unconsidered by anyone, is the same as being dead, and to re-attach is to spontaneously live, but only in the minds of others, as our death can only be measured by others. Thus, our relationships and how others think of us defines our existence.

As existence is defined by the flow of attachment and disattachment, then change and disruption is at its heart. To fit in, to rest, to stand still, these things are decadent, and passion, disruption, energetic change, creativity, define the brightness of life.

Gone

I still love you completely.
I still miss you each day.
My heart is still broken and fallen away.

I still see your face
in my dreams as I strive
to forget every memory,
and crush every hope.

In my soul you're alive,
in my life you live on,
while I'm dead inside,
as I cope,
with you gone.

Structural Forms in Visual Art

For some time I've made paintings that reflect a common theme throughout the work, an image or shape in the painting like a visual motif that appears in different forms throughout it. I called these symphonic paintings, but in the past year or two I've been focusing more consciously on the idea of visual art that uses musical symphonic forms (such as the sonata-rondo form used in classical music). I compose music too, and much of my work in other media (eg. writing, and computer programming) is emotionally and structurally related on a deeper level. The concept of an defined structure in visual art seems to be lacking.

I think this is an essential progression. Most artworks use structured forms, from small scale works like poems, to music symphonies or films. Some classical paintings have degrees of form, such as using the golden section, or a triptych arrangement (these were initially altar pieces, and so partly defined by function, but some modern artists like Francis Bacon developed this form in a secular way) but these are for the most part exceptions, and structural forms are largely absent from visual art.

Structure exists in artforms because it aids communication between artist and viewer. In writing, we use punctuation, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters for this reason. This is structure. Classical music is an essentially abstract form, and the structure helps unify what could be random or nonsensical arrangement of notes into something meaningful, creating comprehensible narrative.

Much of visual art lacks these structures, or relies on third party curation to develop them. A painting exhibition might be arranged so that it is viewed in one particular order, with a theme or grouping. This is structure, but it can be imposed by a curator at whim. For many exhibitions the artist arranges the work, but this can be seen as a separate process. The arrangement isn't always seen as the artwork itself, when this is vital; and of course the paintings on display should reflect the structure and the structure reflect the painting content.

The rules of form

1. An art installation should be structured and feature several movements, to be experienced in order, that grant it a temporal quality. Life exists in time, and visual art needs a temporal quality to represent feelings accurately. Reliance on chance or psychology or opinion for order is not sufficient. This is necessary because a complex narrative requires a complex mix of emotions and ideas, and the artist must be able to guide the viewer in the intended way to communicate accurately.

2. A structure must be unified with a theme. A theme forms common thread that pulls each separate part towards the whole, to create one singular work. An artwork on this scale is not an arbitrary segment on the line of infinite time, but a unified entity with start, middle and end, all of which together form one concept. A theme is needed to hold together the disparate parts of the structure. Variety occurs as variation of a single fundamental idea.

These are the essential rules and can apply to any art from, from poetry and music to visual art, but temporality is usually lacking in visual art. Feelings of structure, order, grace, and beauty are essential components of any artform too, but sometimes for emotional effect these can be broken. Breaking the temporal or global thematic aspects however will only ever destroy an idea and hamper communication between artist and viewer and always dilute an idea, reduce its contrast and intensity.

Dream

Really positive dream last night.

I was wondering around a busy supermarket with prime minister David Cameron, we'd both been given new Nokia mobile phones, but really cheap and rubbish, made from white velcro, with soft, brightly coloured buttons. We decided to ask for replacements and were sent to a distant part of the shop, high up, remote and dark with angular passageways, draped in shadows like the back of a theatre or the inside of a mechanism. The floor sloped down like a funnel, and a hole at the bottom led to a passageway, like the tunnel in Running Man that was the entrance to place we needed to go to. I was now blind, but only blind people could go there, so had to go alone.

I went through the tunnel and emerged from a lake in a dark land and a crowd of dark people. My phone was now a magical white stone, casting bright light in all directions and the people were in awe of it, but warned me that light was banned here. A guard on horseback appeared and I was arrested and tied up, then presented before the king in a courtyard. The king was dressed a bit like a Klingon warrior, with orange/brown colours. I was to be executed by him and his batleth, but then I produced a glowing white sword from a scabbard on my back. The blade was slightly jagged and so bright. I sliced the king in two, freeing the land from darkness.

For me this is about the power of communication, but it was interesting to note the crowds of dark people, the oppressed, who wanted to be freed by the light. The dream was very visual and chromanant, elements, I could paint.

Future Note To Self

I used to be in the perfect crystal prison, a palace of solitude forged by mathematical gods but then I saw a pretty animal and followed it outside into a different world, then another moving thing, then another, then fell ill with radiation sickness in a black valley of sharp flint shards, and the red sky howled with rapist wolves, and through the dead wasteland I found my way back to my palace to find it smashed and dirty, a concrete cube two by two by two metres.

Films That Moved You

What was the last film you found moving? This seems to be rare with modern films, I can't really think of many "blockbusters" this applies to. Why? Is there something about these dreamy emotional films that makes them unpopular? That seems absurd, yet the facts speak for themselves. Here are some of my favourite films that moved me.

From the Life of the Marionettes (along with The Passion of Anna, these are perhaps my favourite Ingmar Bergman films, and so among my all time favourites!)
Wings of the Dove
Grave of the Fireflies
The Whole Wide World
Theory of Flight
Awakenings
Slipstream
Brief Encounter
When Harry Met Sally
Blue Velvet
V for Vendetta
The Hours
The Remains of the Day
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Brazil

What was the last film that you found moving?

Predictability and Freewill

There is an unusual paradox. Science exists to be predictable. The main aim of knowledge is to provide certainty to experience, to allow us to calculate what might happen if we did something, before we did it. On a basic level science exists to help comfort us in our belief that the sun will rise tomorrow at a certain time, but also give us the power to calculate future sunrise times, work out why the sun shines at all, and to control our environment and life as we desire. Yet despite this, there are, in quantum mechanics, areas of science that are fundamentally unpredictable. We might be able to say that a radioactive particle is more likely to emit at this time than another, but not exactly when. We can only measure the outcome. So, although science (and the universe and our lives themselves), seems to be reliably predictable, there is some fundamental level where it isn't. Why?

Prediction itself is a factor of belief and of freewill. Fundamentally, we need to feel free, that we can change things. If we could accurately predict the future, such that it was certain to be, then we would be forced to enact it because our actions would be a calculable part of the prediction. In a universe of perfect prediction we would have no free will at all.

The only options are that we accept that we have no freewill and that the universe is totally predictable (but have no power or ability to change it), or accept that the universe is not predictable but have free will.

Which is true?

First, what is prediction? Prediction is an idea of what might happen at a future time. It's a series of options. If I made the bridge from wood, it would be this strong. If I made the bridge from steel, it would be this strong. This sort of prediction relies on our choices. Are there types of prediction that do not involve human choices? Perhaps a scientist would say; I have an object of mass x and velocity y, so I can predict its energy of momentum absolutely, without involving choice. That equation is a fundamental truth. But is that the case? Can one exactly state the exact mass and velocity of an object without ever using judgement?

There are some measurements in quantum mechanics where the choices made by the experimenter have been shown to affect the outcome on a fundamental level. On a more simple level, in any measurement, the experimenter chooses what to measure. The choice to make the prediction itself is one of free will, to choose what to predict. Because of this reason alone there are no circumstances where a prediction can be made that doesn't involve some freedom of choice.

Freedom of choice is an inherent part of making a prediction because prediction is about control. A prediction is a tool to control the world, and for us feel in control we must have freedom. The two things are fundamentally linked. To make a prediction without any freedom to react to its consequences is pointless.

We want a universe that is fully explainable and predictable, but also want control over it. This is impossible. This is the paradox.

So if we had freedom of thought, then that would be unpredictable, we would demand that, but everything else must be predictable. This idea seems a little crazy. Might it be possible that some areas of the universe are fundamentally unpredictable, and that these areas are responsible for free will? That would solve the question firmly.

In that case, what would define the parts of the universe responsible for free will? And surely, we might also want to make predictions about people and how they think and behave? There are only two options; we have free will that is unpredictable, which would make social science and psychology impossible (and every day life somewhat haphazard), or we are fully predictable and free will is illusory. Is this too simple? Can there be gradations of freeness or predictive power?

Not really. We can't have totally accurate predictions and control over them. We can't see into the future, and control it. Everything works brilliantly when we accept that the limits to our predictive power are self-imposed limits of free will. A quantum measurement is exactly predictable, if we accept that we have no control over the prediction until the experiment has concluded. Yet, even outside of the quantum domain, in all experiments and predictions, this is a necessary trade-off. The reason predictions work so well in the macroscopic domain, the world of sunrise times and bridge constructions, is that we have more options, greater feelings of freedom to react to their outcomes. The less options in the outcome of a prediction, the less freedom we have, until we have no free will at all.

The Love Reliquary II Part 2

More reliquary work. So, the oak was bent, like most natural wood will be. Oak is a heavy dense wood but can have a dry and flaky texture that can split and change shape, especially as it dries. For the base of this artwork I needed a level surface, but also I wanted to stop the bark falling off over the years/centuries. Perhaps that's inevitable, but how can I minimise this?

I could inject glue, but adding more materials can cause more harm than good, as it will introduce new stresses. Generally, the simpler the better. I first cut and stuck a piece of 3mm MDF to the base, this will hold the thing together should it think about flaking. MDF is one of the most stable wood composites, it holds its shape really well. The base still wasn't flat though, that MDF curved inwards to mirror the bend of the oak, which isn't bad, it needs a tight fit to bind it. A second flat piece is needed, and some filling in the gap, so I stuck a second piece on, with wood filler between. Perhaps tile glue might have been a better choice. All fillers have different properties. Some more dense, some contract, some more flexible, some more adhesive. I went for a plain filler, as it was dense and reasonably heavy (for the base of a heavy object, this can be important). After sticking, I had a flat base...

Then I painted the edges of the MDF to mimic the look of the bark. The MDF is recessed a little, so that even if plain black or a neutral hue, it would look okay, this part will hardly be seen, yet, I thought it would be nice to mimic the bark a little. I used acrylic paint and more wood filler to add texture, although this time I used lightweight glass based filler which is less dense and has a foamy texture.

While doing that I stuck the doors together, checking that the paintings fit inside. The edges of these are all rough and uneven. I'll sand them all flat. Sanding the inside is tricky though, or nigh on impossible to get right with my equipment. For this we can set dreams of perfection aside, although there are many decoration opportunities.