PHOENIX

MAFA in Contemporary Practice: Week 25/ 45

April 22nd, 2012

CMR Exhibition | SAVE OUR PLACARDS

Redruth | April 20^th – 22^nd & 27^th – 29^th

This is a written response to the exhibition I attended in Redruth and expands thoughts I had while looking at the variety of work on show and from some of the conversations I had with other people who were at the private view.

On the 21^st April I was invited to the private view to Save Our Placards by CMR group in Redruth. Liam Jolly, who is studying on the MAFA course at UCF, is a music promoter and part of the collective art group running this new development in Redruth. CMR is an artist-led initiative designed to create a community of artists who will exhibit and flourish within this three storey building in Redruth.

This is their second exhibition which brings together the many diverse and creative placards that were made for the London cuts march that happened in March 2011. The diversity of imagination which has gone into creating these statements and mobile thoughts on paper and board, with the various shapes and sizes, (non-conformist, non-corporate), and the sheer range of represented views and opinions, evidenced in this work, is striking.

People who would not have considered themselves artists have created pieces of work reflecting community and in this have created art. These protests that are moving spectators of situation to being participants in constructing, making, colouring and writing a new voice about problems with the current system of governance, is leading us somewhere – I’m just not sure where.

All across the world people are waking up to lies and manipulations from policy makers, lobbyists, business leaders, corporate structures, political parties and their branding through the atomisation of society. Atomised units of currency traded and exchanged, a product made by business; we the people as products traded between businesses. And for our financial product – our units of ‘debt’ as product of our work, our time, our life… becomes interest. A share of the profits at what cost?

Those at the top cream off the profits. Their bonuses, their high pay, the land and property they own.

The 1% is tightening their grip. They lobby to protect their business interests and their status. A GDP based on destruction is not a way to indicate the wealth of the country. The more we consume the more we throw away; the more citizens on medication the more pharmaceutical companies make in pre-tax profits; the more weapons we make the more wars we create; the more products we make, the more rubbish we throw…

The 1% have always had our time; our labour; our land and they have always sought control of our lives through registration. They will come for our social welfare, services and social security. Our institutions our eating into what is left for us to trade.

The 99% are waking up from this consumerist trance. We have been kept occupied, distracted, critically and politically ignorant. The digital age has come to free us, to reveal the hidden and make transparent the lies and deceptions. We share information freely and give a voice to those who didn’t have an outlet before. Open source software, operating systems, sharing of knowledge, of skills and a way to build our own reality free from those who say NO or CAN’T BE DONE.

In 20 years time another 3 billion voices will be heard on the airwaves of mobile and internet networks. Access to information has freed us from the superstitions of the past. Access to new technologies, ideas and thoughts about how we can build a better future, a sustainable future with inclusively built into our human rights. The ability to communicate new understanding, to see through the deceptions of an old consciousness left over from the Industrial Age and instead move exponentially towards a care consciousness.

This is what art does. It shows us anew. It builds on ideas and tests things out, expanding consciousness beyond the television, newspapers, magazines and the media moguls who control the mainstream flow of information.

Let’s make a placard and share something with the public space that we are a participant in. There is more to being just a spectator; afterall, life is not a spectators sport.

Adam R. Grose BA (Hons), PGCE, MIfL

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MAFA in Contemporary Practice 22, 23 & 24/45

April 14th, 2012

WEEK 22

During week 22 I have concentrated on research for my essay since handing in four assignments (Final essay proposal; Negotiated practice with budget for the final show; Concise Logbook aka Research Journal & Professional Portfolio (website)).

I am beginning to form ideas for the final show and all the work I have been doing over the last six months, which is coalescing into something more tangible, through information I have been reading and some of the exhibitions and people I have been seeing and meeting. Some of the ideas I have been coming across have become part of the work I have been working on during week 23, which I will discuss in a moment.

I have been reading the work of Jacques Ranciere, Karl Marx, Lucy Lippard and Susan Sontag and Victor Burgin has popped up in their work, so it looks like I might be looking at his work too.

The reading I have been seeking is looking at the relationship between painting and photography involving what is being considered as the androgynous or hermaphrodite between these two media. By this the ideas involve the relationship between the boundaries between the two in how there is no definitive line between the two. If we think about the etymology of what photography means; its root ‘drawing with light’. As a painter I have always thought of painting as a manipulation of light; the manipulation of colour frequencies which give the illusion of colour to our minds.

Painting and Photography

Rosemary Hawker mentions in her essay Idiom: Post-medium that ‘the hermaphrodite and androgynous are conditions that rely on the external differences with which they intersect, so therefore we should not understand Foucault’s description in terms of homogeneity… Foucault’s point would be that such an image is at once both photograph and painting, which is not to say that it is a combination of the two… Photography and painting are apprehended at once and in the same place, that is, in the image.’[i]

In these terms it is clear that there is a relationship between the two medias that when one is painting from a photograph, there is another element which is brought to the painting that captures something other than what is actually in the photographic image. There is a transfusion or transformation of energetic qualities from the mind of the artist which is contained within the painting that does not exist in the photographic. This is to say the mechanical approach with the photograph only captures what lies before the film or digital image and it is upon the observer of the image who brings a set of qualities, judgements and prejudices to the piece. The participation of oneself within the work is inescapable. When the viewer looks at the work, whether this is a photo or a painting, it is clear there is no passivity in the way the image has been created; in the way it has been cropped, set up, positioned and manipulated through its process of creation etc… Each of us participate via a criticality of the image, whether this is conscious or not. Even if you walk away thinking it was rubbish or uninspiring, you are participating and give the piece its autonomy.

One thing I have become more aware of through my research also is that some painters I admire have used projections of photographic imagery to create their images directly before painting them in, like Gerhard Richter. I thought they painted from looking at the photograph and painting their response to the work, not literally copying from projection [in a sense they are continuing from where Caravaggio and Vermeer left off with their alleged use of the Camera Obscura.[ii]

In terms of the reason for creating their photo-paintings and utilising aspects of the idioms of the photographic image is to highlight and make us aware of these idioms. The out of focus blurs and sharpness (Richter); the flatness of the image’s perspective (Warhol) and an awareness of using two eyes instead of one through expressionism (Van Gogh, Lucian Freud); and how the human eyes create a slight curved effect in how we perceive reality (Cezanne) and the constant shifting of our mind’s perception, revealing how it interprets reality based upon the presented and how our memory, because everything we see is always in the past, interacts with the present moment.

WEEK 23

The research I am doing towards my extended essay about how my art practice relates to my use of the photographic image and its relation to painting, as mentioned above, has led me to the work I created during this reading week.

During the last six months I have been creating drawings, illustrations and paintings taking images from photographic material, printed and digital, seeing how I re-interpret these images into paintings and drawings, to see or reveal how much of the image is a response to my emotive reactions to what it is I am seeing. This can be in terms of the composition, how it is cropped, placed, arranged; the colours or lack of colours; the mark-making in strokes, scratches, gauges; size of the canvas, shape and form etc…

In some way my artwork is creating a form of self-portrait, as Francis Bacon says “My painting is a representation of life…”. In some ways I am not choosing to create a self-portrait of the individual, in this case me, but rather as representative of the society I belong. Of the culture I have grown up and been a part of; a self-portrait of YOU. I assemble images of what I see and respond to in print, the newspaper or from the internet; the social networks; the commodity advertised – but not the commodity of goods and services. This is about the commodity of the politicised, the polemic, the dispossessed and the largely forgotten, until it is too late to help. A commodity of propaganda that cannot give what you need; love, friendship, community and understanding. No matter how much we lie to ourselves for the sake of our pensions, jobs and GDP.

UNTITLED | Mixed Media & Photgraphic | April 2012 | Adam R. Grose

I have taken photocopies of my paintings and writing to create billboard displays. Creating a representation of a billboard, in this case one that has the appearance of the worn, un-used, forgotten. Stripped of its glamour, its promise, its lies; to reveal the layers of the previous. Yet, these are drawings and paintings of these objects, of people, of events; an interpretation of a simulation of reality. The photographic has become a drawing/ painting to become a photocopy to become a collage, to become a photograph to be a painting… which will become again a photographic image. A copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy…

UNTITLED (detail) | Mixed Media & Photgraphic | April 2012 | Adam R. Grose

The repetition of the copy re-interpreted into a critique of our repeated patterns of the copy. An interpretation from a selection process of the once beautiful and desirable; reduced to a forgotten promise in time. To re-display in the public space as an artwork that the passer-by whom may think and inquire as art or pay no attention to; thinking it is just a board left forgotten to the elements, to return back to the forgotten and the obscure.

UNTITLED | Mixed Media & Photgraphic | April 2012 | Adam R. Grose

HEVVA HEVVA!

During this week I was invited by Jan Knowell, from Art and Environment, to an exhibition that took place at Eden in Cornwall. It was a group of artists who were responding to ideas about the environment. The many artists have come from a variety of disciplines and took part in the three day short course; developing ideas and creating work in response.

The exhibition is an excellent investigation into the environment and the challenging inquiry into the way art can respond to the effects of climate change, nature, alternative creative ways of seeing the world and viewing another’s perception of this reality.

I found this exhibition stimulating, intriguing and insightful and I have written a response to it which I will make available on here once complete, which will include photographs from the exhibtion.[iii]

WEEK 24

During this week I decided to have a break and spend some quality time with my family and check out some exhibitions in Bristol and London. I also did a lot of reading too on the train, bus and in the evenings.

I managed to see the following shows:

BRISTOL

At the Arnofini gallery my sister, my niece and myself saw work by;

Shilpa Gupta: Someone Else
Sophy Rickett: To The River
At the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery I got to see ten drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci as part of the Royal Collection

LONDON

I travelled to London by bus to see;

Lucian Freud exhibition at the Nation Portrait Gallery, of which I spent 4.5hrs
Jeremy Dellor: Joy in People, of which I spent 2.5hrs

I will have a detailed write up about these shows from my notes soon…

Adam R . Grose BA(Hons), PGCE, MIfL

[i] Rosemary Hawker, Idiom Post-medium: Richter Painting Photography, (OXFORD ART JOURNAL: Vol 32.2, 2009) p.273

[ii] BBC Entertainment, ‘Carravaggio was [an] early photographer‘, (BBC Arts & Culture, 11th March 2009), <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/7936946.stm> [Accessed 20th March 2012]

[iii] Eden Project, Hevva Hevva, <http://www.capefarewell.com/news/events/661-hevva-hevva.html> [Accessed 16^th April 2012]

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Stealing a Nation, a Special Report by John Pilger – YouTube

April 8th, 2012

Stealing a Nation, a Special Report by John Pilger – YouTube.

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MAFA in Contemporary Practice: Week 21/ 45

March 20th, 2012

Upcoming exhibitions worth checking out for those visiting Cornwall or live in & around Cornwall.

MA Interim Show #2

http://www.newstgallery.org.uk/the_third_room_ex013.php – Juliet Walshe’s paintings inspired by the Cornish Landscape in and around Falmouth.

Exhibition of new work by Oonagh Glancy, Isobel Haysom and Tom Brownhill exploring ‘time’ – Preview on 25th March at #16 western terrace, Falmouth – between 4-8pm

And an exhibition at Siener’s Hotel in Perranporth with new work exploring ‘Aesthetic Forms and their Opposites’ by Susan Vera Clarke, Danielle Mcgowan, Emmanuelle Godeau and Adam Grose Artist from 25th-29th March with a private view on the 27th March 2012 from 6pm.

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MAFA in Contemporary Practice: Week 17, 18 & 19

March 6th, 2012

It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote on here. I have mainly been writing up my essay proposal, logbook and getting on with the large paintings I term ‘The Moment’. I have also been testing out lino cut prints, boxes and acrylic sheets, which I will upload here later in the week. I am playing around with new ways of presentation, looking at how I want the work to be read, perceived or re-presented. More on this later in the week…

In the meantime… the updated essay proposal.

(Working title)

Art as Transformer

Does contextualising the photographic image change the sensible and therefore influence the development of [re]presentation in painting?

Abstract/ Proposal – What the essay will explore

I intend to research the way artists use photographic sources as material in their painting practice and how this affects perception, over a given period of time, of the interpretation through the act of observation and memory. To become aware of the space between what is being observed and how our memory and mind perceives of the image being represented in response to the source material.

What is perceived by the senses to evoke ideas, within the artist [and/ or viewer[i]], to re-consider and re-contextualise, through the act of exaggeration and expressions in re-presentation and how effective memory is within the process of 2D painting practice?

Structure – How I will set out the essay

The essay will explore the way artists, in this case painters, respond to the photographic image and how they contextualise the image to explore possibilities, within painting practice, to seek an understanding of the sensible, through close observation of the chosen photographic image, creating a response, through mark making that captures something of ‘self’ in the work[ii].

Thesis

Artists from post-modern and contemporary art have been directly/ indirectly influenced by photographic media in their practice to reveal something within the image that’s drawn out through the process of observation and memorial evaluation.

Anti-thesis

Artists that use photographic images to create paintings are not influenced by the way they perceive the represented reality; therefore it is inconsequential to the artistic interpretation of the material image.

Synthesis

The perceptual awareness of seeing and interpretation has a consequence that is affected by propagandist ideologies. Images in circulation affect us in ways that can be imperceptible to the general, yet the subtlety by which the mind processes information inevitably influences the way we perceive reality. The role of art [painting] allows community the opportunity to evaluate and contextualise their perception of reality, acquired during a process of ‘close-reading’ the re-presented image created over a period of time.

Methodology – How I will acquire information (books, internet, practice)

My research will encompass: Printed books, eBooks, Journals, Interviews and Internet information (lectures) for the purpose of gathering information to support my case. Those artistic re-interpretations of chosen images, based on criteria set within practice, governs the deterministic outcome in response to the effects of using photographic imagery evoking memory, mark-making and how art processes information for the interpretation of re-presented paintings and the imagined promise to the viewer[iii].

Summary

I contend all art forms propaganda and consequently is affected by the perception of the artist, their environment and culture leading to the represented image and the memorial textures involved in meaning[iv].

I will investigate and explore the use of the photographic image, long perceived as ‘a truthful’ reality, which, in actuality, is a fallacy[v] and how this influences the way we perceive reality.

I will show that the role of art [painting], as re-presentation to re-evaluate and re-contextualise artistic perceptions, is a process of studying, in greater depth, the processed image to reveal an unprocessed reality accessible through the presence of the observer; re-visiting the image, re-evaluating via generational contextualisation of the present moment.

[i] Dyer, Geoff, John Berger: Selected Essays, (London: Bloomsbury, 2001) – Giacometti: An analysis of his work and how the viewer stands in place of the artist. Therefore when the viewer stands before the art, they stand in place of the artist to reflect on the moment, yet when the artist has died, their art becomes a historical document of the artist’s era

[ii] In the context of the mind creating perceptions of reality for the observer and how memory (the past, thoughts, behaviours, ideas, images), of the mind, evoke meaning determining the procedural outcome in a painting.

[iii] Ranciere, Jacques, The Importance of Critical Theory for Social Movements Today – October 23 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUTHDo_hhe0 [accessed 02/03/12)

[iv] Lawson, Hilary, Closure: A story of Everything, (London: Routledge, 2001)

[v] Cezanne, Van Gogh, Munch to name a few have explored the idea that to ‘see with two eyes’ was a more truthful representation of reality than relying on the ‘one-eyed camera’. The mind and consequently the thoughts of the artist reveal an aesthetic, which the camera, by itself, can never do. Art relies on an observer to complete the circuit.

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MAFA in Contemporary Practice (Week 16): Doubt and Art

February 12th, 2012

Winter 1979 | Oil Paint on Canvas | Feb 2012

Doubt is a powerful ally when creating artwork. Doubt reveals the thoughts about the work that may not have been there before. The past three weeks have seen a lot of doubt surfacing and questioning over what ‘it’ is I am researching and trying to put into images in response to these ideas. Sometimes I relish ‘doubt’, the uncertainty of what and who I am and to the reasons why I am painting what I paint. Other times I dislike it as it stands in the way of what I am doing. I could ignore it and continue to create what ever it is I am creating, but I know it will haunt me until I face the facts and begin to comprehend the doubt in question.

The last two weeks I have been removing stuff I had and giving it away to charity. Objects that seemed to have no relevance in my life anymore. Books, CDs, sound-system, amps, ornaments, stones, shells, figures, clothes all gone; but not comics (?). Drawings and paintings that, in hindsight, do nothing for me at this time have found their way into the rubbish, ripped, destroyed, obliterated. [I did scan them before doing so which now forms part of my archive of digital images.]

When I finally returned to the studio at UCF this weekend, to confront my paintings, I decided to change them. Obliterating through layering – to hide, scrub out, remove, re-iterate, understand, reflect and test out. Where these are heading I do not know. One thing is clear – I have doubts.

So, where do I go from here?

Doubt, a status between belief and disbelief, involves uncertainty or distrust or lack of sureness of an alleged fact, an action, a motive, or a decision. Doubt brings into question some notion of a perceived “reality”, and may involve delaying or rejecting relevant action out of concerns for mistakes or faults or appropriateness.

Overall I know I am following the right path for the development of my creativity as an artist. But where this will lead I have no idea… I am gambling. I was in a safe environment. I knew who I was and what I was doing before… I also knew I was not proceeding. I had stepped off the train journey and sat down at the station. A station of security and familiarity – but my instinct knew this was not my final destination… It knew I had many more miles to go.

POLITICIANS | Brush and Ink on Paper | Feb 2012

Maybe the removal of so much I had carried with me on my journey as finally caught up with me.

The removal of these ‘things’ have revealed a ‘gap’ in my life as an artist. An observer of reality and not an artistic partaker. So reality has hit me at my weakest. To know I’m unsure about what I am doing is scary and exciting. Scary; because I don’t know where this is heading. Exciting; because I know I will be stronger for it and a better artist. More informed, more aware and more sure of my skills.

I am sure we all go through this in our lives. Whether we are Artists, Teachers, Politicians, Shop workers, Labourers, Accountants, Lawyers, Judges, Mothers, Fathers, Grandparents, Able-bodied or not and maybe even the Queen.

THE STATE | Experimental Comic Cover | Feb 2012

We are taught to have a stance, a point-of-view, a place. I can’t talk about certain realities because I have not lived them. I never married and have no children. I took the view that I would dedicate myself to understanding ART. Whatever this means?

Was I running from a situation for a particular reason or was it just one of those things that happen – just another person who was not meant for the ‘normal’ life? Or does it run deeper?

THE STATE | Experimental Comic Cover | Feb 2012

There are certainly areas in my life I wonder about… ‘What if?‘.

There’s wondering why my work is not one of those things people see and choose to purchase? Not that I create work for this reason, for this is not Art. I do not decorate. But I do know people like what I do so for me that is enough… a message is revealed and appreciated.

I’ll be honest, I don’t paint pretty. Never have and doubtful I ever will… I just can’t do it. There are plenty of people who can and do. I’m drawn to the darker realities… the stuff most don’t want to see or choose to ignore or are just too busy due to the society we have and are still creating – yet I do love a beautiful landscape, a sunset, a sunrise, a pretty flower, beautiful minds, people the world over and life in all its gorgeous glory. How can I even attempt to capture these things?

A mere mortal – I can’t compete and I wouldn’t want to either… It would fail to capture the glory of nature.

MISSING | Brush and Ink on Paper | Feb 2012

So… where am I now? Why choose to create images that highlight the injustices; the hurt; the bullied; the powerful; the men and woman who prey on the weak; the weak who prey on the weaker; the dispossessed; the fear that preys on us all and the unfortunate who are born in places that is in constant upheaval?

MISSING | Brush and Ink on Paper/ Digital Text | Feb 2012

QUESTIONS

What do I believe I can bring to the table that has any validity in today’s contemporary societies?
Why do I believe Art has the power to change society and as a result its social ills?
Why do I believe Shamanism holds the key to greater awareness of the self and social inclusions?
How can Art show others the key to understanding themselves and in turn reveal a better world?
Why do I detest the way Art is used as a market value in a world that pays so much for a painting while people struggle to keep a roof over their heads and food in their belly?
Is Art doomed to fail and so should we instead direct our creative energy to helping the helpless?
Am I wasting precious time persuing a selfish act of individual creativity?
How can I better use my creativity to the betterment of humankind without it becoming a commodity?
Do we use Art only to wallpaper over the cracks that will not go away?
Is there an Art through action that can better the world through selflessness?

Maybe I need to do some of this:

Cartesian doubt is a form of methodological skepticism associated with the writings and methodology of René Descartes. Cartesian doubt is also known as Cartesian skepticism, methodic doubt, methodological skepticism, or hyperbolic doubt.

Or maybe I just need a Cornish ale and the latest episode of ‘Being Human’?

Now there’s something for me to ponder… all because of ‘doubt’. It will be an interesting week. ;D

Adam R. Grose BA(Hons), PGCE, MIfL
12.02.12

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MAFA in Contemporary Practice: Week 16 (Semester 2)

February 11th, 2012

A few months back we had a workshop with one of our Senior Lecturers at the UCF, Gillian Wylde. Gillian works with performance, text and language and introduced us to various ways we could approach language and text; how we could change sentences and words and inevitably their meanings as a result.

Gillian introduced us to some online programs to experiment with and I have been using some of these techniques during my processes of writing so far during this course. Sometimes I make it aware, other times I don’t. One of these techniques is based on one developed by William Burroughs, known as the Cut Up Technique.

Today I have been experimenting with this program to see if it would reveal new insights into the writing I did in my last blog post.

I took the first paragraph and put it through the program to further refine the words and see what would happen. This is an experiment and a bit of joyful fun. Here are the results below. I have created four versions, each version created I put through the program again four times to see if I could further reduce into something I would not have considered. Some interesting results appeared and a friend on Facebook has just written:

‘ Oh! Interesting … Lots of fear came up!‘ (Allyson Griffith)

Here is the main paragraph from last week:

Cultural prohibitions stop us from being in control of the fear we are in. We cannot afford stupidity; racism; sexism; material consumerism; corporation-ism and the eternal seeking out something we have been sold to us all of our lives, by those whose interests only seek to support those labelled ’shareholders’, in a world seemingly falling apart and unforgiving to those considered human, and choose not to be consumers of mass-produced propaganda of ‘desire’ that does nothing to enhance our lives.

Of corporation-ism we being lives, ’shareholders’, interests and all to only human, cultural be all we fear choose fear be support of been out we unforgiving falling to nothing sexism; unforgiving We our the in. of been us apart stupidity; corporation-ism that mass-produced in enhance that we enhance ‘desire’ We are from ‘desire’ unforgiving we of consumers in world unforgiving seek seemingly to fear.

Fear been our lives, consumers fear of seek ‘desire’, all ‘desire’ from all corporation-ism mass-produced be cultural. We are ’shareholders’, mass-produced ‘desire’, unforgiving. Be of we being and we stupidity; interests we mass-produced corporation-ism choose be ’shareholders’, all nothing interests been enhanced to lives.

Enhanced corporation-ism of interests from being seek ‘desire’, ‘desire’, stupidity, stupidity; lives all enhanced mass-produced seek cultural from mass-produced ‘desire’, be consumers our mass-produced are being unforgiving. Fear ’shareholders’ been mass-produced ‘desire’, been lives. Been ‘desire’ our mass-produced fear corporation-ism consumers.

Enhanced been consumers from all our unforgiving. Corporation-ism being ‘desire’, being stupidity, being consumers seek mass-produced enhanced our mass-produced consumers stupidity, consumers of lives. Cultural lives consumers ‘desire’, be our cultural lives. Corporation-ism unforgiving.

Heh heh… brilliant!

In most of my writing there is an element of using these types of programs to play around with the structure. I am exploring these as a writer and some of this will become part of my extended essay and comic strip work.

Here are some links to a couple sites you might like to experiment with and have some joyful fun.

http://languageisavirus.com/cutupmachine.html

http://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/cutup/links

Enjoy – ;D

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Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich – Beginning – YouTube

February 9th, 2012

Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich – Beginning – YouTube.

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MAFA: Week 13, 14 & 15: Culture in a New Paradigm

February 5th, 2012

Culture in a New Paradigm

Renaissance in the Post-Digital Age:

Experimental writing/ Stream of consciousness

YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ | Brush and Ink/ Digital Image | Feb 5th 2012

Cultural prohibitions stop us from being in control of the fear we are in. We cannot afford stupidity; racism; sexism; material consumerism; corporation-ism and the eternal seeking out something we have been sold to us all of our lives, by those whose interests only seek to support those labelled ’shareholders’, in a world seemingly falling apart and unforgiving to those considered human, and choose not to be consumers of mass-produced propaganda of ‘desire’ that does nothing to enhance our lives.

Desirable objects put upon a society only propagate the eternal wheel of discontent within the psychology of people born into a world on a course of destruction, for the perceived desire of ‘profit and growth’, with no room for those who decided a long time ago to drop out of a system that only cares for its own survival, through the atomisation of people and the misguided selling of ‘democracy’, one person one vote, to a culture repackaged and sold back to us as a product of desire and aspiration.

Rene Descartes proposed[i] that only humans have souls. That a spider can spin a web better than a human ever can, yet the spider cannot spin a web creatively, giving the proposition that only humans have a soul. That only we being able to think beyond the mechanical and in doing so allows Descartes the view that the ’seat of the soul’ was switched on, within the pineal gland, yet the removal of the ideological aspect of the soul has given us permission to rape the Earth of all its resources for the benefit of humankind, when in actuality there is no overall benefit to our species, due to the inevitable fragmentation of the psyche, due to hierarchy theory.

Nature is not mute.

Terence McKenna revealed how the idea persisted where hierarchy theory has explicated the idea of systems giving way to a fractal universe. The macrocosm and microcosm are inextricably linked. The intent of goal projection to perceived goals has been running wild in a society lost from paradise, separating itself from nature, when in actuality we are and always have been part of nature; seeking nature and the purpose of our journey in the unfolding of a realisation of spirit through language, art and the phenomenon of energetic qualities, that have always been linked to each level of existence, from singular cells to complex life living upon the Earth and beyond.

Society may have lost itself into the embedded principles of ‘gathering’ materialisation of the self for the perceived idea of security – a devolution of the human species via ‘I’ and ‘WANT’ that has been propagated by ’systems’ in fear of losing the ’security of profit’; to maintain the lifestyles of the few, who do not care for those of us at the bottom seeking ‘freedom’ from the tyranny of a civilisation built upon the foundations of material wealth, and not raised on a psychical spiritual wealth of a community of learning, helping, loving and the raising of consciousness to higher realms of understanding. We are part of a natural biological energetic frequency of vibration, seeking the infinite from a perceived finite life that we are told is real, yet itself is an illusion created by those wishing us to be bogged down by the idea of ‘property’ that we have no idea of what to do with.

WINTER OF DISCONTENT 1979 | Mixed Media | Dec 2011

Art, through the process of shamanic realisation can free us [through creative principles] to greater reflection and expansion of the inner-space, freeing us from the psychic demons given to us through previous misunderstandings of parents, peers and teachers who are also lost in a system built to control the very freedom we aspire towards. To seek closure in this realm of existence that no-one understands tantalises us to more questioning of the conventions of power and institutions, whose sole purpose is to ’stay alive’ and save itself from its own fear of destruction, through ever more increasing control.

‘Time is the moving image of eternity’ Plato (c. 428–427 BCE)

‘The Shaman [Artist] leaves the mundane plane to ‘trigger’ a rupture through the plane of society’s existence into ‘new dimensions’, to behold time, as James Joyce remarks ‘in a nutshell.” (Terence McKenna)[ii]

YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ | Brush and Ink/ Digital Image | Feb 5th 2012

The commercial artist sells their creativity to the creation of ‘image’ to form propaganda that does nothing to free us from the mire of society, but only to propagate ‘desire’ that sells illusions of existence; to aspire to be something the majority can never attain; to live a life of lies for the benefit of companies and shareholders that we are told we need. If you ‘want’ (desire) to be something – THEN be.

Buddah said to a follower who said to him ‘I Want Happiness’ to first remove the ‘I’ for that is EGO; then remove the ‘WANT’ for that is DESIRE; and then what you are left with is ‘happiness’ [OUTCOME]. Remove (EGO) and (DESIRE) and the outcome is already yours to behold… If you REALLY want it. But have we been taught to fear it because what do you do once you have attained it?

CHRYSOPOEIA | Brush and Ink & Digital | Dec 2012

Take the hand that nature has given us and be un-afraid to experience that which is to be experienced. We must be ready to let go of everything we have been TAUGHT to WANT in a society that has been brought up to be in FEAR of itself.

‘The DAO of the ancestors stare back at us every morning in the mirror of reflection. See yourself for who you are and be aware that you see a reflection of illusions built over time, illusions that we need to strip away to get at the ‘truth’. [Walking, thinking, conscious beings of stardust]. To remove the ‘crisis of civilisation’ that has become so complex in its diversity that we are quickening the pace of literally placing the planet at a crisis point, that inevitably will lead us to a point where we will have to separate ourselves, to become what we behold, a kind of apotheosis. To become Divine and meet a future state of consciousness that we have been attracted towards since the beginning of time, [to a point of closure to receive the textural information that gives meaning to substance] and new revelations of consciousness through the endeavours of humankind and all species on the Earth.’ Terence McKenna[iii]

In other terms:

‘To become one with God and return to the source of transcendence, [becoming both creator and the created, in a true shamanic sense of awareness]; riding the wave of knowledge to realise true wisdom and move forward towards a new state of ‘being’ from whatever we decide to imagine of ourselves, leading into the imagination which is our ‘true home’. For what we imagine we create and what we create becomes our reality… literally.’ Terence McKenna[iv]

The ‘mirror of our mind’ allows us to create ’stuff’ allowing us to move beyond the material and into the realm of ideas and the imagination.

CHRYSOPOEIA PSYCHEDELIA | Brush and Ink & Digital | Dec 2012

‘The brain is more like a receiver of consciousness rather than the brain creating consciousness, in the same way programmes are not made in your TV… the box is too small.’ Terence McKenna[v]

Adam R. Grose BA (Hons), PGCE, MIfL

www.adamgrose.com

i – Descartes, Rene, Animals as Machine, Powerpoint Lecture, <kellyinglis.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/animals-as-machines.ppt>

ii – McKenna, Terence, Understanding and Imagination in the Light of Nature, Lecture by Terence McKenna <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCbBVUiQzVM> Accessed Jan 28th 2012

iii – Ibid

iv – Ibid

v – McKenna, Terence, Understanding and Imagination in the Light of Nature, Lecture by Terence McKenna<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCbBVUiQzVM> Accessed Jan 28th 2012

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