(t h e h u m a n , t h e p r a c t i c e o f a r t a n d t h e t r u t h )
“In our age, as never before,
truth implies the courage to face chaos.” Erich Neuman
Yet what is truth or the truths in a world where everything is challenged, reconsidered and meanings are requestioned towards infinity. The truth is: a.) that ecology became a political movement, b.) we expect nature to be pacifisitc, c.) together we produce unlimited toxic products as if mother earth could take this up into eternity, d.) there is neither a global agreement to protect the planet, e.) nor a global agreement to protect the individual human and non-human beings, f.) the governments are aware of all this, g.) this list is not finished and can never be finished, g.) the missleading concept of the survival of the fittest could not jet be eradicated so far, h.) mankind needs another chance, i.) pease is better than war, j.) no cosmos without chaos.
In what kind of world do we live? Is the current world locating a single indescribable chaos or is there an underlying harmonic order? Who is driving us towards disaster? What happens in the planetary battle between cosmos and chaos. Do these two – at first glance paradoxical polarities – depend on each other?
The questions relating to cosmos and chaos or in that case rather chaos and cosmos have always been universal for mankind and date back to ancient Egypt, where the experience of the cosmic order for especially the poorer part of the population was omnipresent within there everyday life. Egypt as habitat has always been characterized by the Nile and its huge desert where the cosmic conditions immediately made itself felt on the lives of people if the rains did not come. But as a monarchy it simultaneously included the experience of the order by the powerful of the population as a daily experience. Not only in ancient Egypt but almost in every origin myths we find ideas of chaos and cosmos and the fact that the world has not emerged from the void but from a shapeless mass, adopted by the hands of the Gods or a God figure. With the material age this immediate experience of the meaning of cosmos and chaos as such became less tangible for most of us.
What is the conception of cosmos in an apparently chaotic world which is alleged to be postcolonial to be global, postmodern and anti- Euro-centric? But yet the global rivers flow less chaotic than one would hope for but in predetermined directions less horizontal and enforced by an inhuman world tracking and the truth remains buried. Maybe it would be more tangible to speak about war and peace.
Are the artists obliged to dig and penetrate the ground with picks and chisels? Digging and knocking, hoping to encounter a glimpse of truth, to shorten the distance between the world and the I at least a bit? Is the art of doing the need to find order in the chaos or to bring chaos to the human made world order? Still what is the meaning of chaos and cosmos how can we grasp it and what are the relationships and hierarchies between the two and where does truth come in?
Is there a need for a cosmos in a contemporary world in which fairytales, myths and parables become less important to shine and in many places substituted through countless counselors about how to find happiness and free yourself from an empty and meaningless existence – and everyone awakes with the shocking awareness that anything can happen – and immediately. This condition should allow us humans back in uncertainty from where you can ask the essential questions “new” again, what is the meaning of life and what is a good life meant to be?
„‚All right then,‘ said the savage defiantly, ‚I’m claiming the right to be unhappy. Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.‘
There was a long silence. ‚I claim them all,‘ said the savage at last.“
– Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1931)
What are the images you have in mind when you think about life – and further what are the countless images the majority of humankind sees in the media about life from anywhere in the world everyday, how are they selected distributed, commented and arranged? The images of life! Who are the producers? In classic age the artist was predestined for any kind of representation but the wind of change brought us in the digital age where everybody is the master of his own representation. Bin Laden as the most famous video artist – as Boris Groys stated in his text “The Fate in Art in the Age of Terror”, in which he explained how the tasks amongst artists and warriors in the classic age where clearly separated and the representation was left to the artist whereas fighting was left for the warriors so that there was never a rivalry between them. Today the warriors do not need any more artists to represent themselves and their deeds, they will be assisted with all the necessary media available to present themselves as you can see in countless videos and images distributed via the world wide web, which can not find absolutely unrestricted dissemination but still have a very large reach to a worldwide audience, far more than most of any paintings in a conventional museum. Today it is the mass media which is the largest machine to produce images. What than remains for the artist to do and wherein is the difference between the doing of an artist and the doing in general.
“Technically, every work of art comes into being in the same way as the cosmos by means of catastrophes, which ultimately create out of the cacophony of the various instruments that symphony we call the music of the speres.” Wassily Kandisnky
Art and non-art have long been infiltrated in the past hundred years. This new art which has given up the right to artistic peculiarities partly in favor to manifest a point of view because the autonomy of art lies precisely not in its independence from other human practices but in their complex connections to these. It is an evolving concept to be determined as an artist within the art and as a human being within the world. Humans are what they are not by nature nor tradition alone determines their being but it is the condition of the human form of life which is based in an ever lasting redefinition of themselves. In that way it is rather an ontology of the practice in which the art arise than an ontology of the artwork since they can not due to their reflexive nature be easily removed from the totality of the historicalcultural practices in which they arise. The confrontation with art works thus challenges other practices. Art is therefore not a particular element within society but a focal point which influences human practice. Through the engagement with art it is possible to develop an understanding of what we are and thus also determine who we are as human beings and want to be.
Whether art is a-political, abstract, minimalist hyperreal or any other thing you can imagine, it allows you in any case to take a position and thereby determine yourself.
by M. Kroker,
September 2015
Notes Nr. 02 on: Between Cosmos & Chaos: What does a post apocalyptic condition
Zu sehen in einen dunklen Raum, ein Rundlaufdiaprojektor, eine Abfolge von sich immer wiederholenden Projektionen an der Wand, von Bildern deren Formen sich bemühen, einer exakten Beschreibung zu entziehen.
Der Vorschlag dieser Installation bewegt sich um die Frage, auf welche Weise man vorfahren kann Kunst, inmitten des dauerhaften Zerstörens kultureller Traditionen und einer Kultur des Zerstörens, zu machen.
Mit Bezug au einen möglichen Zusammenbruch der Geschichte in ihrer Erholung/Wiederherstellung als Kunst, während einer Zeit kosmo-ökologischer Unerfahrenheit.
Ich erfasse die Formen hier durch sie selbst, die ihre Verkörperung durch das Aufeinandertreffen unterschiedlicher kondensierten Zustände von Materialisierung erschaffen.
Materialbeschreibung: Die Installation besteht aus einer Dia-Show, die endlos (für die Dauer der Ausstellung) im Kreis geht, was Tag und Nachts bedeutet. Die Glasträger der Dias sind die Oberfläche, auf der die Form sich manifestiert, von selbst hervorkommt durch das abtropfen von schwarze Tinte. Durch die unzähligen Teilchen, die sich in vielen Jahren auf dem Glas der alten Dias abgelagert worden sind, ergeben sich unerwartete Farben und Formen.
“In our age, as never before,
truth implies the courage to face chaos.”
Erich Neuman
Yet what is truth or the truths in a world where everything is challenged, reconsidered and meanings are requestioned towards infinity. The truth is: a.) that ecology became a political movement, b.) we expect nature to be pacifisitc, c.) together we produce unlimited toxic products as if mother earth could take this up into eternity, d.) there is neither a global agreement to protect the planet, e.) nor a global agreement to protect the individual human and non-human beings, f.) the governments are aware of all this, g.) this list is not finished and can never be finished, g.) the missleading concept of the survival of the fittest could not jet be eradicated so far, h.) mankind needs another chance, i.) pease is better than war, j.) no cosmos without chaos.
In what kind of world do we live? Is the current world locating a single indescribable chaos or is there an underlying harmonic order? Who is driving us towards disaster? What happens in the planetary battle between cosmos and chaos. Do these two – at first glance paradoxical polarities – depend on each other?
The questions relating to cosmos and chaos or in that case rather chaos and cosmos have always been universal for mankind and date back to ancient Egypt, where the experience of the cosmic order for especially the poorer part of the population was omnipresent within there everyday life. Egypt as habitat has always been characterized by the Nile and its huge desert where the cosmic conditions immediately made itself felt on the lives of people if the rains did not come. But as a monarchy it simultaneously included the experience of the order by the powerful of the population as a daily experience. Not only in ancient Egypt but almost in every origin myths we find ideas of chaos and cosmos and the fact that the world has not emerged from the void but from a shapeless mass, adopted by the hands of the Gods or a God figure. With the material age this immediate experience of the meaning of cosmos and chaos as such became less tangible for most of us.
What is the conception of cosmos in an apparently chaotic world which is alleged to be postcolonial to be global, postmodern and anti- Euro-centric? But yet the global rivers flow less chaotic than one would hope for but in predetermined directions less horizontal and enforced by an inhuman world tracking and the truth remains buried. Maybe it would be more tangible to speak about war and peace.
Are the artists obliged to dig and penetrate the ground with picks and chisels? Digging and knocking, hoping to encounter a glimpse of truth, to shorten the distance between the world and the I at least a bit? Is the art of doing the need to find order in the chaos or to bring chaos to the human made world order? Still what is the meaning of chaos and cosmos how can we grasp it and what are the relationships and hierarchies between the two and where does truth come in?
Is there a need for a cosmos in a contemporary world in which fairytales, myths and parables become less important to shine and in many places substituted through countless counselors about how to find happiness and free yourself from an empty and meaningless existence – and everyone awakes with the shocking awareness that anything can happen – and immediately. This condition should allow us humans back in uncertainty from where you can ask the essential questions “new” again, what is the meaning of life and what is a good life meant to be?
„‚All right then,‘ said the savage defiantly, ‚I’m claiming the right to be unhappy. Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.‘
There was a long silence. ‚I claim them all,‘ said the savage at last.“
– Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1931)
What are the images you have in mind when you think about life – and further what are the countless images the majority of humankind sees in the media about life from anywhere in the world everyday, how are they selected distributed, commented and arranged? The images of life! Who are the producers? In classic age the artist was predestined for any kind of representation but the wind of change brought us in the digital age where everybody is the master of his own representation. Bin Laden as the most famous video artist – as Boris Groys stated in his text “The Fate in Art in the Age of Terror”, in which he explained how the tasks amongst artists and warriors in the classic age where clearly separated and the representation was left to the artist whereas fighting was left for the warriors so that there was never a rivalry between them. Today the warriors do not need any more artists to represent themselves and their deeds, they will be assisted with all the necessary media available to present themselves as you can see in countless videos and images distributed via the world wide web, which can not find absolutely unrestricted dissemination but still have a very large reach to a worldwide audience, far more than most of any paintings in a conventional museum. Today it is the mass media which is the largest machine to produce images. What than remains for the artist to do and wherein is the difference between the doing of an artist and the doing in general.
“Technically, every work of art comes into being in the same way as the cosmos by means of catastrophes, which ultimately create out of the cacophony of the various instruments that symphony we call the music of the speres.” Wassily Kandisnky
Art and non-art have long been infiltrated in the past hundred years. This new art which has given up the right to artistic peculiarities partly in favor to manifest a point of view because the autonomy of art lies precisely not in its independence from other human practices but in their complex connections to these. It is an evolving concept to be determined as an artist within the art and as a human being within the world. Humans are what they are not by nature nor tradition alone determines their being but it is the condition of the human form of life which is based in an ever lasting redefinition of themselves. In that way it is rather an ontology of the practice in which the art arise than an ontology of the artwork since they can not due to their reflexive nature be easily removed from the totality of the historicalcultural practices in which they arise. The confrontation with art works thus challenges other practices. Art is therefore not a particular element within society but a focal point which influences human practice. Through the engagement with art it is possible to develop an understanding of what we are and thus also determine who we are as human beings and want to be.
Whether art is a-political, abstract, minimalist hyperreal or any other thing you can imagine, it allows you in any case to take a position and thereby determine yourself.
by M. Kroker,
September 2015
Notes Nr. 02 on: Between Cosmos & Chaos: What does a post apocalyptic condition mean? Are we in a post apocalyptic condition or is the apocalypses still waiting for us?
If you are not predestinated to be biologically blind, and dump and you are not wearing one of this hotel accessories to cover your eyes and cover both your ears with the best ohropax advertised on the marked where everything seems to be a matter of money and even freedom and happiness is advertised as a product you can just buy if you have the necessary coins.
What, in this context could be understood as a radical humanism?
Is the world at all a space which includes the opportunity to practice a radical humanism at the state we are in now. Even though the world is running apart and everything seems to happen in one ore many parallel worlds, if you think of the humans sharing the same beach, some of them are called migrants some of them tourist. They have more in common then it looks like within this manipulated scenario where only due to the direction of there travel are totally politicised in to diametral ways. The ones who are traveling from the global south actually have to pay much more money and effort to invest for there journeys, even they risk there lives to a high degree, the once who are traveling from the global north towards south have it incomparable more easy.
Even though they are sharing the same goals, they all want to live a good life and have a good time.
What does this again mean. A Good life? How can we live a good life within a world which is highly corrupt. For example, makes you sharing a coke with a so called stranger a radical humanist or should this rather be judged as a manifestation of the support of our neo-colonial capitalist marked structure. How can we actually achieve to be radical humanists in a definitely hyper corrupt world like e v e r y b o d y k n o w s.
Are we really in a post revolutionary state. Of course somehow we are but the question is do we not need another revolution to become radical humanist? Maybe an inner revolution – I don’t know.
But what happens? What we find here at least in the so called global south somehow rather looks like that the elite is trying to administrate a collective depression to produce a degenerated and more easy to handle mass population. The making of the world definitely lies in many wrong hands and and they are not at all able to handle the catastrophes we are faced with they do not even seem to catch up a possible right direction.
I don’t think we should wait until the civilized are going to “colonize heaven” we should better start thinking wild.
M. Kroker
works & words & walks & worlds 