Black Bucket Essays
Volume 1, Issue 2
Normalize difference until there is no space between self and other.
Billy Friebele
Art is a non-linguistic space in which communication occurs through the senses. I am drawn to ways of using this form that do not rely heavily on symbols, narrative or categories. Similar to music without words, I believe artworks have the ability to communicate an experience, which may embody two opposing forces or ideas simultaneously. In this way, the headspace one enters while creating or being immersed in the experience of viewing an artwork can be one of that exists between logical categories.
My favorite experience of viewing or creating art is the porous nature of the boundaries between myself and other beings and objects. I think that is why a long period of working in the studio can lead to a positive mental state. The desire to achieve something slips away and one can watch the process unfold and delight in the complex reactions that take place. The barriers and categories erode and the mind becomes at rest.
I have been thinking about the function of visuals in religious contexts lately, and while there are a lot of symbolic/narrative forms, every religion relies on visual communication because it transcends the didactic nature of language. This functions on several levels: It allows the iconography to be experienced by multiple cultures (and perhaps there is an imperialism that underlies this impetus), and it inherently communicates in a visceral way that bypasses language (which is also a tactic used by propaganda).
All of this is to say that by transcending linguistic exchange with visual communication, a conduit is opened in which categorical thinking can be evaded. This leads to a type of thinking that embraces contradiction and denies boundaries. If one is to follow this path far enough, there is the real possibility of the dissolution of the concept of self into a larger framework or network of connective tissue. The individualism that we have all been taught then may be bypassed for a wider perspective of possibilities in which self and other are like time zones, artificial creations that we have constructed for the purpose of maintaining our numerical theory of time.
Volume 1, Issue 2
Normalize difference until there is no space between self and other.
Billy Friebele
Art is a non-linguistic space in which communication occurs through the senses. I am drawn to ways of using this form that do not rely heavily on symbols, narrative or categories. Similar to music without words, I believe artworks have the ability to communicate an experience, which may embody two opposing forces or ideas simultaneously. In this way, the headspace one enters while creating or being immersed in the experience of viewing an artwork can be one of that exists between logical categories.
My favorite experience of viewing or creating art is the porous nature of the boundaries between myself and other beings and objects. I think that is why a long period of working in the studio can lead to a positive mental state. The desire to achieve something slips away and one can watch the process unfold and delight in the complex reactions that take place. The barriers and categories erode and the mind becomes at rest.
I have been thinking about the function of visuals in religious contexts lately, and while there are a lot of symbolic/narrative forms, every religion relies on visual communication because it transcends the didactic nature of language. This functions on several levels: It allows the iconography to be experienced by multiple cultures (and perhaps there is an imperialism that underlies this impetus), and it inherently communicates in a visceral way that bypasses language (which is also a tactic used by propaganda).
All of this is to say that by transcending linguistic exchange with visual communication, a conduit is opened in which categorical thinking can be evaded. This leads to a type of thinking that embraces contradiction and denies boundaries. If one is to follow this path far enough, there is the real possibility of the dissolution of the concept of self into a larger framework or network of connective tissue. The individualism that we have all been taught then may be bypassed for a wider perspective of possibilities in which self and other are like time zones, artificial creations that we have constructed for the purpose of maintaining our numerical theory of time.
