Theism: Art & Spirituality.ideas first online October 1999Converted into the Game of World Religious Art and displayed in London, June 2002Also presented as part of a paper at a conference on Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art at the University of Warwick, England (2002) and to the International Society for the Study of European Ideas at the University of Aberystwyth, Wales (2002). These papers will be published soon.
Articles published include Digital Spirituality in Explorations in Art and Technology Linda Candy & Ernest Edmonds, Springer, 2002 ISBN 1-85233-545-9 and Reconciling Binary Oppositions in Body Space and Technology Journal Vol. 2 No 1
Art can be used to directly manifest the spiritual or to be a secondary link to the spiritual. When used as a secondary link the art is often opposite to the directly manifest style in order to create a balance. The directly manifest balances by changing into its opposite.The fluid, experiential spirituality (eternal/mystical) directly relates to abstract design and the fixed, conceptual spirituality (historical/moral) directly relates to figurative art (i.e. Gods with human attributes). The original, primitive creativity linked the abstract and the figurative. It was aesthetic and process based, e.g. music, dance and design but used meaningful figures in ritual. With self consciousness it fragmented and the two perspectives were taken to extremes in a search to find an overarching unity. Through history the psyche has tried to balance these extremes - the figurative and the abstract. It has done this self-consciously by directly manifesting the spiritual in its art form or by subconsciously balancing the spiritual with its opposite art form.
Some forms of polytheism (like the Celts) was figurative (Gods with human qualities) but balanced with the abstract, e.g. monoliths and designs. Monotheistic, moral religions (like Judaism and Islam) were similar as they balanced with abstract designs and buildings. Greek Polytheism tried to directly manifest its figurative Gods in its art forms. Western culture inherited Greek thought and tried to reach a balance in Modernisms abstract spirituality and abstract designs. Christianity was a mix of both Greek and Jewish thinking. As it was primarily Greek it focussed on the material incarnation of the spiritual. This is why it took the Jewish spirituality as being abstract. In the doctrine of the Trinity the Catholics and the Orthodox focussed on the abstract aspect of God the Father, so they balanced with figurative art and Icons.
The Protestants focussed on a personal relationship with a figurative Christ, so they rejected figurative art and favoured design or simplicity. The essentially figurative Christianity was abandoned by Modernism. Greek abstract thinking and art remained. Western culture sought meaning but was not prepared to accept the abstract, non-dual mysticism (beyond meaning and meaninglessness) so in the 1950s and 60s the abstractions of Modernism were rejected. As a result, the validity of abstract and figurative, mystical and moral, were all rejected in post-modernism. This uses meaning ironically as if it were just another aesthetic material. It sees the links it makes between the perspectives as ultimately invalid. The post-modern rejects a unified answer by including answers within aesthetic relativism. My work consciously re-validates all of the strands in a balance, instead of in oppositions. It gives a visual link between the spiritualities that cannot be made philosophically in order to express the human condition. |
