What's on the other side of the dark side of the moon?

It is not so much the I that has inspired me as much as the inspired i is observing, expressing and creating. I imagined that this is not apart from the flow that guides the phases of the moon or the path of the clouds.

I in i- had one of those amazing pieces floating into place epiphanies. When we sing/experience the song of our soul there is nothing like it. I used to think of it as My process, now i get it that it is the process.

"When our wounds lead to breakthroughs that connect to the sacred through inspiration - healing is possible & growth is the natural outcome." From: Breaking through woundedness to heal


Hind-sight is 20/20 and so there is nothing quite like the view of staring back for a clearer view.

How strange it might seem to pay attention this thing that can not be seen directly, only evidence of its existence witnessed and document it. Like other invisible forces (gravity) we learn through observation. It is a mistake to think this done only with the mind.

You don't know what you don't know until you know what it is you don't know.

[1/10/2009 11:25:21 AM] Ronald Wopereis says: ok read it
[1/10/2009 11:25:35 AM] Ronald Wopereis says: when you are on the dark side of the moon
[1/10/2009 11:25:49 AM] Ronald Wopereis says: how would you know which side is dark ? or ... what darkness is?
[1/10/2009 11:26:04 AM] Ronald Wopereis says: i believe that life, as we know it, is this dark side
[1/10/2009 11:26:10 AM] Ronald Wopereis says: ?

i pause to listen -
there is a song that calls for me to find it
to allow myself to hear,
not just the melody -
but the base line, the words -
invisible layer of inspirations

together in the holon
parts, the rhythms that depend on the pacing of the notes,
- rests, pauses, shouts and whispers

sounds
that like the wind
travel in unseen streams
but none of us doubts its flow.

you caught me!
looking in your direction
i was watching this flow
and when it whirled in your direction
i couldn't help but pay attention



1. Morphle

As a collaborator there is Source:Converge on Attention and Source:Love infused into solution aka technology and cyberinfrastructure the language Merik uses (open source code as language) + community culture =

For reasons i could not explain my attention had been drawn to object oriented programming six or seven years ago. Even then i was trying to figure out how this would support the creation of this cyberinfrastructure of holistic technology.

And so there is this experience of coming full circle within a multi-dimensional reality one sees it is not flat. It is the never ending spiral. I continue to explore this ... It seems to me that these are what I am coming to see as "foundational" concepts - points of reference in terms of paths in the the process.

Breaking through Woundedness to Experience the Sacred

THIS POST IS STILL BEING WRITTEN

On Thurs. Sept. 4, 2008 I posted the start of a video idea I was playing around with that changed quite a bit by the end.

Pondering the journey to my interest in this piece, I looked back at this one "good bye metamorphosis" . I started it during the summer following the death of my father. It is a digital piece that I intend to explore as a deconstruction series.

The imagery was inspired by The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into an insect. (source Wikipedia)



Flash back to 2006...

The question - after taking it all in and knowing that collaboration was the way - I understood that any hope of peace meant a transformative commitment to living in peace- The question was: "what can i do?" That was the one that pointed my Attention in the direction of the door.

Imagine that your fingers have been slammed in the door. To stop the pain you decide to tie off the lower part of your arm at the elbow to interrupt/stop the flow of attention to the pain. Is that really the best response when you consider the consequences and risk exposures that flow from that choice?

Now what if you allow the attention to move in the direction of the traumatize area? Your Attention would first flow to an awareness of where your hand is now. Before you make a move to heal, you need to first get your hand out of the doorway.

Then you might realize your actual intention had been to open the door and walk through.

Instead of seeing this through the lens of the problem (symptoms) we see from a higher perspective of flow where events and ideas converge to create realities.


This piece was connected to, was the precursor of Home vs. Place of Origin - not in any official genealogy of the work but according to that trail of tears and giggles that lead us to our inspiration....our awareness...and if with the right Attention our expanded consciousness. Our ability to see the interconnectedness of our life experiences and choices is enhanced by our willingness to do so.


Cultural Fusion emerged from the energy of the question "what is peace?" back in 2006 when Ron and I decided to pay attention to this.

On a personal level in what is peace I was grieving the many losses that were commanding my attention at the time. Interestingly, several of the people I engaged in the first couple projects of this work also had someone they had lost that they felt moved to express a tribute to through some clarity in life direction.

For me, it was the death of my Grandma Lottie (paternal grandmother) that dominated my attention. Recovery from that loss led me to see that I had used my connection to her to connect to my father. For example, I would look at a photo and say I have my Grandma's eyebrows. Well, not until after my father's death did it occur to me when looking at his photo that I had his eyebrows. He had inherited her eyebrows and been the one to pass them on to me, but I refused to see it that way...until I did.

When we started Cultural Fusion it happened because Ron's work with Attention (See: Bilocality and the inner world of attention) helped me start a new phase in the quest to heal my relationship with places of origin. See Bert Hellinger's work here and Ron's Attention Diagram here. As fate would have it Ron and I found we shared an interest in this work and Ron is a trained/experienced representative.

[9:18:37 AM] Ronald Wopereis says: once you see in in the diagram, the whole thing is easy to understand
[9:18:57 AM] Ronald Wopereis says: shortage of attention or love on one side, immediately affects the other side,
[9:19:14 AM] Ronald Wopereis says: and while attention flows through generations, it affects the next diagram
[9:19:30 AM] Ronald Wopereis says: ( = diagram of next generation in bloodline)

In SoulFood: Individual or Personal Level

To me there is the game and then there is the essence of this paradigm that supports healing. Soul food is depository of Love that flows forward through time to reach across generations.

In what is peace? series part of what I am interested in is reconciling my own conflicts to find deeper levels of peace so that I may contribute that to the world in which I hope to be a part of creating a culture of global peace. In terms of place this started with my concern for Human Rights which is where I cut my teeth in social advocacy with Amnesty International and homeless shelters. In the peace series, I found it was my relationship with the south that called for attention. During a disturbing research trip I was inspired to start "Surviving the South" as part of that leg of the journey.



The most obvious conflict was connected to the concepts explored in Home vs Place of Origin. It is no secret that I am still searching for a place that FEELS like a place you love to love - one I am happy to love as my hometown...a town I can fall in love with. When I find it I will consider that my hometown.

I have been working on a play about this for two years. My relationships to place in many ways mirrored a playing out of women who don't see their pattern of selecting abusive partners. When they first leave there is this sense of living in freedom that has to be discovered before one can really get on with living - thriving instead of surviving.

There is a relationship to this connection to place, the absence of it, an abundance or deficit in social capital ---->in relation to place---> that has an economic impact because it has an economic expression in its component. This expression is more complex than our narrow consumer behavior driven economic analysis would allow one to see.

Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed. - Albert Einstein

In the past it has been easy enough not to pay attention to this less obvious side of economic systems. However as more people are interested in solutions rather than band-aids to what is unfolding, some will start to see the wisdom of kind of art as art based solution research <---> Cultural Fusion Art as Philosophy is an application of Attention:Bilocality knowledge base and SoulFood model.

This morning I had my breakthrough!

Breakthrough: Chipping through a wall with no idea how thick it is. The breakthrough is the moment when you can see the light on the other side starting to peek through.

The play is about a woman who returns to live in the town where she was conceived and abused. While we learn about the community we also see how she has used her conscious choosing to transform wounds into triumph - and showing by contrast how genuine encounter with the sacred - transmutes the sinister and the tawdry.

I had been working on revisions to the opening for very close to a year and suddenly this morning I got it! I will share more about that later.

All of this is what I was/am expressing in this Home vs Place of Origin series...and the lesson that led to the video was that I am my own Home.


This is the most recent version of Home vs. Place of Origin.


The breakthroughs today are connected to Cultural Fusion in a profound way. Having made this personal journey through the work where the personal, social and the political are intimately related....What has changed?

The concept for the Cultural Fusion "business website" has finally come together!

In the works associated with Cultural Fusion I have come to see how these sources of inspiration are connected to a wide range of issues and I am inspired that I have these characters and art works through which to express my insights and conclusions.

When our wounds lead to breakthroughs that connect to the sacred through inspiration - healing is possible and growth is the natural outcome.

Invitation to Collaborate, Contribute and Promote your Project

I wanted to share this with you as it is a way to participate in the Cultural Fusion Experience and help promote your project, organization, etc. Also because I am using this as a way to scout for collaborators for the Cultural Fusion Tour....we can discuss that later if that is of interest to you. Of course, anyone else that is interested is also welcomed to contact me.

See my latest blog post or post to the forum about inviting people to contribute for the next video.

After much discussion about the branding of Cultural Fusion, Cherrie of Global Gia Marketing had a brainstorm session this past weekend and she came up with the concept.

I point this out because it could be a great way to start promoting various artists, events, and communities/organizations that are or will be participating.

Could you help introduce this opportunity to the artist community where you are?
My thinking is you could have a few or several artist shoot their clips in your national art museum or similar with their work in the background (2D work, performances, etc) or as part of the reading itself.

What do you think?

If you are interested, or know anyone who is please join me at the Cultural Fusion Group Network because I will be using the group to coordinate this endeavor to make things easier (manageable).

All the best,
Yvette

Process as Art, More Insights from Source Artist Process

There are those conversations that for some mysterious reason come at the just the right time to help crystallize an idea or lesson.

Imagine, a 20 year desire takes center stage and I felt compelled to make my mark as an installation artist, rather than confining myself to my previous explorations that rarely ventured beyond the land of canvas or paper. I felt drawn to software and digital art although I knew virtually nothing about the tools of the trade.

Gradually it started to dawn on me that if I announced this intention that I was opening the door to let whoever wanted to pay attention witness my growth process as an artist. When I realized and accepted what I was setting out to do, I had not even learned to use Photoshop. Since then I have made playing with various tools to work out ideas part of the process art concept.....

Recently I had a conversation that helped me understand you don't let what you don't have stop you from doing what you need to do. If I waited for someone else to see the value in what I have been working on then there would be nothing to communicate it now. I had to start in order to increase the potential for the goal to be realized.

Last week Dawn was discussing fear in her blog. Later as an aside she explained the reason for shining the light to clear them out.

Today I had one of those conversations that allowed me to see more fully the fears I had overcome to pursue Cultural Fusion…and what the phrases, "art as philosophy" and "art with purpose" mean for me.

Tonight I have had a deepening of my experience and understanding of why process art as a core component of the installations I have been developing.

Process artists were involved in issues attendant to the body, random occurrences, improvisation, and the liberating qualities of nontraditional materials such as wax, felt, and latex. Using these, they created eccentric forms in erratic or irregular arrangements produced by actions such as cutting, hanging, and dropping, or organic processes such as growth, condensation, freezing, or decomposition.

Source: http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/glossary_Process_art.html

What they refer to as random occurrences I see as synchronicity when they advance the work to become part of the process. In this multilateral framework these are points of Source:Convergence.
Where most work has been concerned with growth in context of plants or base perspectives, this one is concerned with growth in consciousness, self awareness and personal fulfillment on the individuals and collective/community levels.

Process art

U.S. and Europe, mid-1960s
Process art emphasizes the “process” of making art (rather than any predetermined composition or plan) and the concepts of change and transience….

Their interest in process and the properties of materials as determining factors has precedents in the Abstract Expressionists’ use of unconventional methods such as dripping and staining. In a ground-breaking essay and exhibition in 1968, Morris posited the notion of “anti-form” as a basis for making art works in terms of process and time rather than as static and enduring icons, which he associated with “object-type” art. Morris stressed this new art’s de-emphasis of order through nonrigid materials, pioneered by Claes Oldenburg, and the manipulation of those materials through the processes of gravity, stacking, piling, and hanging.

Source: http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/glossary_Process_art.html


Where formal discussions of process art is concerned with "properties of materials" and expanding the understanding of "unconventional methods".

The adaption of Process Art to a context that is possible of engaging larger communities rather than ascribed as a luxury of the few.

Taken several steps further SoulFood as framework for the Source Artist Process-internal. Attention has been paid to the survey of the ingredients .

This is most definitely research into the metaphysics of art applied to real life challenges.

1. Personal growth through art as process
2. Transparent model for the above as part of sustainability and community renewal
3. Research and Development into implementations of open economies as part of the above
4. Helps define intangible assets and economies that can leverage opportunities previously mentioned
5. Concept for works of art that are interconnected expressions of the above

Accepting the Process and Lessons in Peace

There are not many places that support large files, so I have really come to appreciate what makes Youtube the top video sharing site.

Originally, I had planned to only share these videos internally with the core team I have been working with, but I changed my mind. One of the reasons I decided to share them although it doesn't perfectly reflect my vision is that this series is largely inspired by my own issues with perfectionism....breaking an old pattern to learn about self-acceptance. This is major issue in creating peace, as the lack of it in the world is a reflection of the same lack in each of us as individuals.

If we can not accept ourselves then we can accept someone else and this leads to the need to be judgmental, blame, and even punish others.

The opportunity to be loss makes it worth the risk for my ego to share this imperfect video and I see that if I didn't I would miss the chance to be the first or one of the first to chart this new territory.

In addition, this is how space is made for other people to join in. This There has to be room for others to join and express the best of themselves and that means they need to see the change their contribution makes in really clear ways. If I waited until I covered all the pieces myself or just hired professional firms then the chance to engage people at the grassroots level in the most meaningful ways would be loss.

That is fundamental to the concept, expressed ideally in "stone soup" story.

In this case, I show up with an idea and a pot--- Ron was the first to pay attention, which led to everyone else that followed having something to pay attention or contribute to - intangible assets (knowledge, talent, etc.) or physical resources (money, technology, etc.) expressed in the SoulFood model as the vegetables, meat, spices and that is how the meals (aka projects) come to be....we then can document with these videos and artworks that Cultural Fusion process and see how it take shape in a way that to me seems more honest than if it was just written as an article, paper, etc in retrospect.

So that is what I have learned and has led to this little series I am playing with now. For paid client projects I would hire a team but at the moment this serves it purpose and is not intended to represent a finished product.

Enjoy!

Art and Politics- An Alternative to Protest Art

I have long been an advocate for end user led innovation, especially in IT. Recently I have been pondering connections between our failed check and balances in U.S. political arena. I generally don't get into politics here but because we have only traveled further down this road I feel I have an obligation to at least put some questions and information forward. It is hard for me to believe that Americans don't care, and it seems that those outside the States may be completely unaware of what is happening.

Also, with my interest in social capital this has been a primary instance that I have been paying attention to for a number of years. For several years, I have asserted that this decline in social capital would have economic consequences and I feel the market crash is an indicator of this.

Cultural Fusion has emerged from my interest in finding an alternative to Protest Art because as an artist we have an responsibility/choice to comment on the times we live in as we see/experience them.....and even better, Cultural Fusion intends to be part of solutions. Obviously, I like to keep things as positive and proactive as possible and this is no exception.

Key questions I have are:

Did the Gonzales firings in the Dept. of Justice thwart investigations into voter fraud or irregularities?

Why did Kerry concede the election when he knew that not doing so would have supported checks and balances working to investigate questionable results?

Why are the people shut out of the process of selecting voting machines and operating software?

Given that these issues have gone largely unaddressed what is the point of the Presidential campaign where no one pays attention to such a fundamental usurping of political credibility?

Will ignoring this problem yield results similar to what we have seen on Wall Street?

AND what does that mean for you?

The series of video projects I am working on now are not blatantly political but the ideas I am exploring them have evolved in this context (at least in part). However, the video art projects are less concerned with rehashing the problem(s) as much as it is presenting a context for solutions....not by focusing on the symptoms but going to the heart of the matter which really isn't so much about politics as it is the status quo in general. In that paradigm the underlying deficit in social capital - and the personal expression of that reality in the lives of millions of individuals merit attention that can perceive the broader context.

For up to the minute info on this issue see Black Box Voting
If you have not seen it already, please watch and share this video

the beginning:Home vs Place of Origin

This is an Art:Work under construction. I decided to do it three or four segments that will be brought together in the space. Each segment will be a central part of creating spaces, framing them if you will, inside that larger venue space.

So here is the beginning minus most of the music/sound. If you have suggestions, feel free to post links to audio in the comments.

In addition to the issues of place and affection that sparked this piece for me, it is being shaped by my work in Art as Interface.

One of the striking findings I have had during this development process is the issue of Radical Inclusion in relation to technology. And perhaps the most surprising thing has been the connection this has to my work in the area of Relationships and Connection.