I happen to catch Brian Eno (musician) on the ‘culture show’ (21st May 2010) where he was interviewed at the Briton festival: he said that he was going to talk about the purpose of art. The interviewer was intrigued as the Arts was one of those subjects that is open ended as to its purpose as it is probably the only field that is free to be anything it wants to be. Total freedom to create. He said that art was part of our biological being: it is programmed in our DNA. When our time is our own the first thing we do is we start to make objects of decoration which then leads us to higher/more complicated forms of art. Art takes us to a new space and so on. So it has a natural process that is inherent in us. I like to thing that it has its part to play in the unfolding of inner form. It is a dialogue between the artist and his work and in this ‘relationship’ he/she opens up to ‘what is’: that is all the factual aspects of the unchanging, all encompassing, structural nature of the universe, both tangible and the intangible, which includes us and our part in it.
The ‘ending of time’ is really a follow up from the previous 2 articles. When one moves away from the dogmatic center to then be in a space of ‘choiceless observation’ with no judgment in the mind. Living with a mind that is only observing and watching and with this comes stillness. Now the question you ask is how does this new space work. Out of this stillness what are the new rules of the mind. How does information become in this new space.
‘The nature of duality and non-duality are revealed in simple language. In that state of questioning, a state when the questioner, the experiencer has ceased, in a flash, “truth” is revealed. It is a state of total non-thought.’ (Jiddu Krishnamurti)
‘The mind which is the vessel of movement, when that movement has no form, no “me”, no vision, no image, it is completely quiet – In it there is no memory. Then the brain cells undergo a change – The brain cells are used to movement in time. They are the residue of time and time is movement; a movement within the space which it creates as it moves – When there is no movement, there is tremendous focus of energy – So mutation is the understanding of movement, and the ending of movement in the brain cells themselves.’ (Jiddu Krishnamurti)
I think when the mind is still from only observation a whole new physics comes into being. So how does the NEW come through in this new space? We now look at the ‘The Tenets of Quantum Physics’ by Amit Goswami (theoretical quantum physicist).
Non-Locality
We are all interconnected – even without signals, and experimental evidence is proving our inherent unity.
Tangled Hierarchy
In our brain, we become one with the neuronal images of an external object because of a tangled-hierarchy, a circularity. The observer is the observed.
Discontinuity
The discovery of something new of value in though is a quantum leap of Aha! Insight
The first 2 points are important to the artist but it is the 3rd point which shows us the way to what’s new I think. When I say, I think, I mean, I am putting an idea across: it is not ‘what is’ (but it might be), a natural fact that has always been true as Krishamurti explains: through observation we need to recognize these facts, both tangible and intangible.
Non-Locality: also includes the work of Rupert Sheldrake, where with the morphogenetic field we are all connected (see earlier article): that organic database in the ether that we help create and feed off.
Tangled Hierarchy: In our brain we are one with what we observe. ‘The observer is the observed’ was first put forward by Jiddu Krishnamurti purely by observation, and later taken up by Amit Goswami as a quantum fact. We tend to stand away from what we observe of ourselves and the environment, but really we are one with it: we are what we observe, and it does not exist apart from us. If you look at it through a neuronal perspective, then you can see how it works: what you are and what you observe just sits there next to each other, zapping away in your mind. You and what you observe are one. So when we follow a problem we might have with the ‘self’ or that ‘center’ created through time in us: we watch it totally to see what it does and how it functions. But we watch it like it is one with us: ‘the observer is the observed’. It changes I/we change. Get it. ( I was taken in by a statement that Alex Katz made on TV recently, when the interviewer asked him what was the content of his work and he said the style was the content. He said he did not think Rembrandt was a good artist, because he always was making work, with the question to the viewer of ‘get it’, ‘get it’, ‘get it’ with each work he made). When we see the ‘what is’ of it, we then bring it to an end. We are really cleaning up the database. We have to deal with the 100’s and 1000’s of years of accumulated happenings, through from the times of the ancients, to the present time that we have made of ourselves: we observe and bring the un-natural elements to an end. The stillness in mind comes as a result of some of this process. It is a process of cleansing and being, through observation. Also in Tangled Hierarchy it has been said that some things/happenings with you perhaps, cannot be explained when observed in an isolated manner: the reasons for this is that the ‘physics’ of it all is complete, an equation can be formed, only when all the elements/people are put together and looked at as in a group.
And then there is discontinuity: this is information that comes through to you that does not have to go through a medium to arrive to you. Like when an electron in an atom goes from one level to another it is not seen to go through a medium to arrive. It appears and disappears. So the new comes to you in this fashion: it appears as what we know as insight. So when you discard such information, because your thinking mind does not recognize it, then you discard a possibility that could have brought change. So when a mistake shows itself as something new, but you discard it because you are busy being a carpenter of an artist, then you discard something that would have taken the front line of art for a quantum leap. And so on.
You can ask Damien Hirst about discontinuity because people are still trying to get their heads around his work. He has changed some of you forever by just you looking at his work: the function of art: to transform you. And it ain’t bingo.