Kima Wheel, Roundhouse, Curtain Call and a Beautiful Heresy

Thus begins the beginning of that which I spoke in time recent past, for it seems now I am ready to begin, and thus do I begin …

I stand in Roundhouse – a kind of Globe – which is, as informing name tells, a circular place, where space is bent into curved form, and lying within there sits for some moments in time, another round construction known by the name of (Ron Arad’s) Curtain Call, creating an inner space and an outer one too, within the curved space that I have just entered into. And what appears is what you want to appear, made so by the projecting power of technology which is a means of displaying creation and seeing sounds, as you will soon, by these revealing words, find.

Kima Wheel is a wave from the imagination that comes forth specifically to fall upon the 360 degrees of canvas called Curtain Call, which unlike a normal curtain is not a barrier to freedom of movement of performers or audience, who move in time and space as this is not a strict classical Ancient Greek separation. The wave this time is a wheel of poetry, and comes by virtue of Anelema Group, which one might say, is a different way of looking at that which passes through our lives daily, often unnoticed, but without which there could be no life at all, which, if you care to see, is more than just science and technology, or art made with such.

Thus now I have set forth the scene in kind of Prologue form, befitting of the theatrical context which now before you will unfold.

It’s about emotions it seems – feelings, all very subjective and quite a contrast to most art-science and art-technology, being as they often are, though few can see, but manifestations of a certain strand of Enlightenment thinking, the stinking corpse of which lies rotting all about. Yet Enlightened minds sense only reek, and do not see that they are the corpse that decays, which is giving off the decomposing smell.

In the world – another Globe – here and there, come glimpses of a new and different age slowly taking form, being illuminated by light from eastern directions originating – some dare to call it the Age of Tao. That’s me, referring to myself. I am inclined to be self-referencing at times.

But there must surely be others as well, who can see that Europe’s time – the age of the West – is done, and to go with it too, must be those Abrahamic secular beliefs – that’s Western Capitalism and Western Science and Technology, if you are wondering. Western Communism is already just about gone, and what goes next, is the rest, and by my hand will their demise be hastened, and thus will strange beliefs be despatched to the past where they do belong. ’Tis about the power of the pen, which becomes even more powerful when combined with other forms of expression as you will see anon!

Now is the beginning of the age of the universality of humankind. So no more cultural colonialism please – are your listening you people in Brussels, Washington DC and all those other cities of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece, where you still foolishly pursue those dated dreams of making all the world European? How does the thought of a Taoist Science and Technology make you feel? In the East there is the West, and in the West there is the East. It’s not a binary, or a duality, but a unity – a unity of opposites, which your fragmented minds cannot easily digest. That goes for art-science and art-technology too, which are ever so binary because of the dominance of Western minds that see only such separations. Everything is connected – can’t you see?

Where to look is the empty space so to speak, waiting to be filled by those who dare to pursue a different dream. You will also find that what comes forth will be very Kantian too! That’s another dimension to it. ’Tis a very beautiful heresy built on a different foundation to that which Western minds construct.

Back to the curved space and then comes the moment – it’s the aesthetics of participation – so the audience becomes, for a time, the creating force – let’s not here bother with the rhetoric and the postmodern ideology for this is already history, and I am very much alive. This is the moment to put the world back together again in different form, and so do I raise from the dead, theory too. To see, to know, to understand, to find something new, and in doing so to become different people – these are the goals that I pursue.

Continuing – I am back to the curved space again: hesitantly at first, I begin to speak those words that come from my own shaping hand and with eye I see, images formed, while being immersed in my own sound, and that of others too. This imaging of sound I discovered before appearing is made possible by virtue of technology, of neural networks, produced from research of the type that leads to PhDs. And the emotional moment is then transformed, and cognitive becomes, as I know that once again I am creating from words, visual images, for whatever reason do I in this strange scriptovisual process participate. It’s something to do with morphogenesis rather than morphostasis, if to cybernetic concepts you are inclined.

And then I am lost in my own world of the mind, afterwards thinking: was that the intention or is this serendipitous action? Interactive art is a place where the unexpected sometimes happens. To be or not to be that is the question, whether it is better to be highly scripted, or very open, or somewhere in between? It is after all, just like a play – Act 1, Scene 1, enters …(but not necessarily linear). It all depends upon what you want to achieve is the answer to the question.

Then I want a pen and desk and to start exploring, but this is not the venue for such things, yet evidently it becomes possible to compose images with words, hence my intuitions are confirmed, for: in the beginning was the image, and from the image came forth the word, and to image doth the word return. That’s what the image called Genesis in Reverse (on the homepage of my web site) is saying. But why is the question? As I said it’s something to do with morphogenesis and the making of something transformational – most art-science and art-technology is not, but I keep looking for something that might be, or have the potential for such. It is a long, long quest. Did I find sight of journey’s end in Kima? Only time will tell, but Kima in its many different manifestations, bringing together at different times, music, performance, immersion, dance, poetry, technology, sound, image and synaesthesia, does make for something very different to the normal explorations of an art space that is now at least six decades old. And being so old it has become a source of much dissatisfaction within me, as indeed has literature which is even older – thus another reason deep within for the quest that I have embarked upon.

Thus then finding that I am not anymore able to compose, I take on a different role, exploring through vicarious interaction that which lies around. Then it is done and I am gone to another place in London, where some conceptual art from the past lies waiting to be explored, and there I do find, more information about the image and the word combined – another serendipitous moment in time.

Intriguing possibilities is the ending phrase that comes forth from of this waltzing encounter with word and image, bound together in ways it seems that still lie unseen.

II.1

Enter Marshall McLuhan and Paul.

PAUL: Were DG CONNECT not listening? No they were not, for it is the funding of art that thou should do, not the development of unconventional and compelling products with under-funded afterthoughts, otherwise known as artists, in tow. And you get what you get, but you can get some interesting things if you know how to create the infrastructure to enable this. It seems I do and DG CONNECT do not, which is one of the reasons I engaged in critiquing DG CONNECT and what they did, and much more as well.

MARSHALL: I see many people do quote me – thus do they say, quite often, that the medium is the message. But it seems that is all they say. Do they not understand media? The point, most important, that I also made, is that our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. Feel free to quote me.

PAUL: And be it true that this thing that we now call STEM, that too is media?

MARSHALL: It be true as any truth be true. Art-science and art-technology too, for these are media as well. Better look therefore and see beyond the numb stance.

PAUL: We do.

Exeunt.

Enter Julia.

JULIA: Forgive us if we seem to be, that which you do not wish us to be, but the world of STEM, and its funding of art, are problems writ large for those who wish to see, for they have their own agenda grounded in morphostasis, and silent narratives too, which we are able to hear, for we walked among them unseen, and in preparation, spent much time while growing up, learning how to see – and what we see are little children playing in the rye, blindly unaware that they dance on the edge of doom. Now they dance with artists too. Better catch them lest they fall. So back to morphogenesis again! Thus we engage in a beautiful heresy and bid welcome to a time that surely must be what humanity will come to see as the inevitable turning, for no age lasts for an eternity.

Exit.